PBS, Ken Burns, And Latino Vets: “Exclusion” Or “Mere Affirmative Action”?

Agustin Gurza, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times writes “Culture Mix,” which seems to be not only about but for Latinos — in his current column, “Latinos Fight For ‘War’ Memorial,” for example, he writes about the successful effort to force the inclusion of “our” Latino World War II vets in a new PBS documentary by Ken Burns.

Latino advocates have been up in arms recently over the exclusion of Latino soldier stories from Burns’ new seven-part documentary, “The War,” which explores the conflict through the personal narratives of veterans and their families….

This week, PBS announced that Burns agreed to incorporate Latino and Native American voices. Burns will assemble a new production team, including a Latino, to create the material in time for the Sept. 23 premiere.

Naturally, this controversy was both introduced and concluded by discussing it in the context of Imus affair:

While Don Imus spent this week trying, unsuccessfully, to make amends for sexist and racist remarks he made on the air, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns was forced to address a controversy over what was left unsaid in his upcoming PBS series about World War II. [Introduction]

….

So by week’s end, Imus was out, Latino vets were in. Not a bad trade-off. [Conclusion]

What I found most interesting, however, is an assertion by Gurza in the heart of his column: “But this is no mere affirmative action issue for the people involved.”

Hmm. What exactly is “mere” affirmative action? How does it differ from affirmative action that is not “mere”?

Whether it’s “mere” or not, this affirmative action controversy seems to share many elements with other affirmative action controversies:

• Can a lack of representation always be described as “exclusion”?
• Who, exactly, must be included, and to what degree? For example, would any Latino vets satisfy the critics of their “exclusion”? What if they were all Chicanos, leaving Cubans or Costa Ricans still “excluded”? What if a particular Costa Rican vet had been the blond, blue-eyed grandson of Italian immigrants to Costa Rica?
• Who should decide upon the proper mix of various versions of Latinos?
• Although most affirmative action conflicts involve the non-discrimination principle, this one is a bit different; it involves the principle that art should be from political manipulation. Hector Galan, a Texas-based documentary filmmaker whose father fought in the Philippines, put the issue nicely:
  

  “As a Latino, I’m thrilled,” said the producer, whose work frequently airs on PBS. “But as a filmmaker, I’m saddened because I wouldn’t want to be put in the same position to change content due to pressure. It smacks of censorship and it could be precedent-setting.”

PBS also “[w]orried about the same issues,” but, as Gurza points out, not for long.

PBS was at first reluctant to ask Burns to alter his work. But in the end, the network decided it couldn’t ignore the public clamor, and Burns agreed. Existing material won’t be cut to allow for the new material, said John Wilson, the network’s senior vice president of programming.

“We sort of have to walk that line of trying to do right by the audience while allowing the filmmakers to execute their vision,” Wilson told me this week.

Principle compromised by “public clamor.” Sounds like mere affirmative action to me.