Wednesday, March 28, 2007

PBS REJECTS LATINO COMMUNITY’S DEMANDS FOR INCLUSION

PBS President Kreger Defends Ken Burn’s Exclusion of Latinos from WWII Documentary

In a March 13th letter to Latino community representatives, Paula Kerger, President and CEO of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), rejected the demand that PBS delay the release of Ken Burns’ 7-part WWII documentary, until it is re-edited to include the Latino experience. “This is unacceptable and an insult to the hundreds of thousands of Latino veterans who served in World War II,” responded Professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez of the University of Texas at Austin and one of the leaders of the Defend the Honor Campaign that met with Kerger last week to discuss the issue.
The Ken Burns documentary, which is scheduled to air in late September, has been the target of mounting criticism in the Latino community because of its exclusion of the experience of Latinos. The 14-hour series was six years in the making.
“How is it possible, that in the six years it took to make this film, no one involved thought to ask where are the Latino stories?” asked Gus Chavez, another founder of the Defend the Honor Campaign.
In her reply to the group, Kerger noted that PBS is supporting community outreach and educational initiatives attached to the Burns documentary. That local programming is intended to “bring forth the many stories that are not part of the Ken Burns series.” PBS will consider programs produced by local stations by possible national airing, she said.
But the local programming isn’t enough, the Defend the Honor Campaign organizers said.
“Once again they want to relegate us to being the side attraction, keeping us out of the main act,” explained Marta Garcia, a New York-based founder of the Hispanic group.
Angelo Falcon, another founding member of the Defend The Honor Campaign, noted that the timing of the Burns documentary was particularly troublesome.
“Our demand for inclusion comes at a time when the Latino community is too often under attack as being ‘unwelcomed foreigners,’ despite the fact that the majority of us are U.S. citizens and, in the case of WWII, close to half a million of us served this country,” said Falcon.
Rivas-Rodriguez, who established the U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project at the University of Texas at Austin eight years ago, said that the community response to news of the Burns documentary has been visceral.
“All Americans feel a deep, personal, connection to WWII,” she said. “These are our parents, our grandparents, aunts and uncles. We know their contributions and sacrifices. And we are painfully aware of how the have not had the recognition they deserve. It is our duty to right this wrong.”
Various Latino groups and individuals are calling for a boycott of PBS, while others plan to pressure the corporate, foundation and government sponsors of PBS and Ken Burns, said Chavez, a Defend the Honor Campaign organizer out of San Diego, CA.
“We are disappointed that PBS, being a public television network, was not more responsive to our community’s concerns,” said Chavez. “They have not heard the last from us.”


Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project (http://utopia.utexas.edu/explore/latino/)

Gus Chavez is a Latino community development and education advocate based in San Diego.

Marta Garcia is founder and co-chair of the New York Chapter of the National Hispanic Media Coalition

Angelo Falcon is president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, based in New York City

source: press release

2 comments:

Steve said...

This is nothing new from PBS, trying to look "mainstream" (read white) to avoid budget cuts from "mainstram" (read Republican) congressmen who think PBA is too "liberal" (read minority-oriented) for the average American taxpayer (a guy in Omaha with Brylcreem-soaked hair and a gabardeen suit). Perhaps WNET and the rest of PBS will be more sensitive to the Latino experience when they BBC-style dedicated funding (not gonna happen, this is America!)

Anonymous said...

Update:

PBS Reverses Position: Will Include Latinos in Burns Documentary
Latino Groups View Decision as Potentially Historic in PBS' Relationship to Their Community

(On April 11) PBS informed the Defend the Honor Campaign of their decision to reverse their position and include the Latino experience in Ken Burns’ forthcoming World War II documentary, The War. In a letter released today, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger reported that, “PBS, Ken Burns and his co-director/producer Lynn Novick have decided to create additional content that focuses on stories of Latino and Native American veterans of the Second World War.”

The PBS plan also included the following elements:

* The additional narratives about experiences of the Latino and Native American veterans of World War II will be integrated into the documentary, the DVD, the Website and PBS’ educational outreach materials.

* A Latino producer will be hired by Burns production company, Florentine Films, in consultation with PBS, to be part of the production teams that will create the additional content.

* The War will premiere on September 23, 2007 (during Hispanic Heritage Month) as scheduled with the inclusion of the new content.

* Additional national programming will be aired on WWII that will include and focus on the Latino contributions to the war.

The Defend the Honor Campaign was organized in early February to coordinate a national volunteer campaign to pressure PBS and Ken Burns to include Latinos in the documentary, The War. Based at the University of Texas at Austin’s U.S. Latino & Latina WWII Oral History Project headed by Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, the leadership of the Campaign first met with PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger on March 6, 2007 in PBS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. At that point, Kerger informed the group that PBS would not be making any changes to the Ken Burns film because it was already completed and they did not want to interfere with his artistic independence.

“This is a great victory for the Latino community and for our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much for the defense of this nation,” stated Rivas-Rodriguez, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin who leads the project that documents the Latino role in the war.

“When we started this campaign in February, many people told us that we would never get PBS to change its mind on this issue, given its poor history with the Latino community,” Rivas-Rodriguez said. “But it is a tribute to Paula Kerger that she listened and took our concerns seriously, especially since this problem predated her leadership of PBS. She is a person of great integrity and we look forward to working with her.”

“The unity in the Latino community on this issue was unprecedented,” stated Gus Chavez, another leader in this movement, a retired university administrator and a veteran himself. “We were part of a movement that demonstrated how powerful our Latino community could be when we work together in common cause.

We were also deeply moved to see that this struggle by the Latino community also resulted in the inclusion of Native Americans in this documentary,” Chavez said. “It makes the point that, as Latinos, we are also fighting for a broader agenda of inclusion.”

The Defend the Honor Campaign has responded to Kerger in a letter in which they outline some concerns that they wish to pursue further with her.

“As they say, the devil is in the details and we need more information, especially about how the Latino experience will be treated in the film, what role our community will be playing in the development of the film itself, in the development of the educational materials, and in PBS’ community outreach efforts,” said Marta Garcia, another leader of the Campaign who volunteers as Chair and Founder of the New York Chapter of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. “We plan a follow-up meeting with Ms. Kerger and will be talking to them about developing an ongoing mechanism by which our community can have input and can act as a resource for PBS.”

“We also need to make sure that this problem does not occur again and media advocates like the National Latino Media Council will be following up to make sure PBS in general better incorporates Latinos in its programming, staff and in other ways,” Garcia said. The National Latino Media Council is a coalition of 15 of the largest Latino civil rights groups that have come together to focus on media issues relating to Latinos.

“As a longtime journalist, I can attest to the impact this decision by PBS and the Burns’ film can have on how Americans will view the Latino community and its contributions to this country,” observed Iván Román, another member of the leadership of the Defend the Honor Campaign, and Executive Director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “We think that this will make the documentary a more accurate and enduring work on an important part of this country’s, and the world’s, history.”

“This result was made possible by the unusually strong collaboration between the many Latino organizations and leaders that came forward to let PBS know that our community must be respected,” said Angelo Falcón, who also is part of the leadership of the Campaign and is President and Co-Founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy. “Groups like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the American GI Forum, the National Latino Media Council, the National Council of La Raza, MANA and many others at the national and local levels throughout the country came forward in defense of those from our community who sacrificed so much to defend all of us.”