Members of CPCC during 2007 Puerto Rican Day Parade in June
Private First Class Jose Peralta stopped smiling. He looked straight into me and answered the unsettling question about war, "I would go to Iraq if they asked me." His chubby companion, PFC Garcia, and his female companion, PFC Juarez, nodded soberly in agreement while their immigrant parents smiled politely. Their radiant brown hands and faces glowed against their starched straight white uniforms. But, instead of drawing the usual looks of admiration from onlookers, their regalia - shiny black shoes, tight white slacks and white hats and white shirts colored with shiny medals - drew stares of disgust on the Manhattan-bound D train. Riding from the working class immigrant part of Brooklyn near the Navy Yard to Union Square, the historic center of peace marches in Manhattan since the end of the Civil War, they didn't seem to let the stares distract them. They are committed; they are proud members of the Coastal Patrol Cadet Corps (CPCC); they are ten years old.
PFC Peralta and his fellow cadets are but a few of the thousands of Latino children targeted for early indoctrination into the military by programs designed for the very young. The Coastal Patrol Cadet Corps website states clear goals: "Our activities are designed to build upstanding Americans, with physical and mental stamina, discipline and obedience. Instructions are given in numerous categories, including military discipline, leadership, infantry drill, rifle drill, seamanship, navigation, first-aid, communications, boat handling, drum, bugle and band instruments."
I asked PFC Peralta if he knew anything about the Latino PBS The War controversy raging across the country. "No. I don't know nothing about that," said the bright-eyed son of immigrants from Puebla, Mexico. But he had, he told me, already made up his mind about the military: "I'm gonna be the Captain of a navy ship."
I thought about that earlier encounter with PFC Peralta and his crew as I watched Ken Burns' War documentary Sunday evening. The 14 and a half our epic was as much about the current and future PFC Peralta's as it was about the septuagenarians and octogenarians featured in the film. The controversy around whether and how to include Latinos should matter to all as should the issues around artistic license.
One can only the imagine the agony Burns experienced as he was forced to correct his Latino oversight with scenes a reviewer at the New Yorker magazine said had a "tacked-on" feel to them. Placed at the very last ten minutes of the first episode, the East LA accents and bolero music of the Latino interviews do, in fact, make those characters and stories seem completely foreign to the small town USA stories at the heart of the first two hours and the entire epic.
More than the actual film, the controversy around the film will have done more to educate the country about the more than 500,000 Latinos who enlisted, fought or died during World War II. Premiering during a historical moment of unprecedented anti-immigrant, anti-Latino sentiment, The War's "Oh-yeah,-Latinos-fought-too" feel will not inspire future PFC Peralta's to enlist. Viewed from the perspective of peace activists, Burns' jerky editing of Latinos into history (ie; even his Southwestern US-focused The West documentary included only 2 Latino characters out of a cast of 80) may actually be a good thing.
Those who depend on war and those who advocate peace know that future wars and the future of the US military itself depends on the decisions of young Latinos like Peralta. As Larry Korb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics in the Reagan Administration Defense Department, once told me, "Latinos are very important to the national security of the United States," adding that, "A decrease in Latino enlistment numbers would make things very difficult for the armed forces, because they are the fastest-growing [minority] group in the country and they have a very distinguished record of service in the military." If he were Secretary of Defense, Korb, would "be very worried about the possibility of decreasing Latino numbers. I'd be thinking about how to make do with smaller numbers of troops or with further lowering standards for aptitude, age, education and other factors."
Programs like PFC Peralta's CPCC are part of an armada of programs and campaigns linked to or influenced by a Pentagon that needs 22 percent of the Armed Forces to check off "Hispanic" on enlistment forms if it is to meet recruitment and deployment goals by 2025. As if mounting a major offensive on a domestic adversary, the Pentagon is, unlike Burns, paying extremely close attention and spending millions to find out about the world of PFC Peralta: what he wears, where he hangs out, what kinds of groups he belongs to, what he reads, what he watches on TV, his grades, his dreams. Members of the Pentagon's many and well-funded recruiting commands are a permanent feature of urban school systems; programs like the No Child Left Behind guarantee that schools give recruiters PFC Peralta's home phone number, address and other information. Even popular children's restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese is doing its part to make sure PFC Peralta gets the martial message when he's not at CPCC. Puppet shows at some restaurants include military music and Chuck E. Cheese television has broadcast images of Latinos and others in the Army giving food and supplies to children in Iraq.
Burns failed to fulfill promises to activists that he would "seamlessly" integrate the Latino portions of the film. But his failure will do little to inspire PFC Peralta and other Latino kids to enlist between now and 2025. Hopefully, documentarians of future US wars will lack Latino subjects because there will be fewer PFC Peralta's to film.
Thank you, Ken Burns, for barely including us in your War.
Follow Roberto Lovato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robvato
But, sadly, no mention of my co-religionists in the entire series. I might as well have been watching a Roy Rogers film. No Jews in the West either.
kobe8lal
Thank you for your post.
If Latinos feel left out in "The War", they have that right. They do not have the right to demand that Burns rewrite his work to suit their whims. If Latinos have been so grievously harmed, than others have every right to produce their work with more emphasis on the role of Latinos.
You can't please everyone. No artist can please every demographic when their finished work is unveiled for the first time. It's simply impossible. Artistic and editorial choices are the purview of the person creating the work. If others disagree, then let them add their own work to the public debate instead of unending complaint.
Yes! Thank you!
It really is all about freedom of speech. You can say, "damn, that film sucks." But you can't say, "Hey dude, make it be how I want."
Let Jimmy Smits, or Jessica Alba, or Jennifer Lopez make that film.
And just like I tell the government, stay the hell out of my life.
If you have a problem with the situation, talk to the parents, you creep. Don't abuse these kiddies just because you don't like their program.
Ugh. I'm glad I don't live in a an anti-military area like Manhattan. And what were you doing pestering these children on the train about their politics? Those kids sound like they're a lot better grounded than you are. After all, you were horrified that "Chuck E. Cheese television has broadcast images of Latinos and others in the Army giving food and supplies to children in Iraq". Yeah, God forbid that anyone should show some of the many good works that our soldiers do.
People with "radiant brown skins and bright eyes" should be allowed to cross the border freely because they can make good soldiers.
Did I miss anything?
No movie or any bigots opinion will ever change that.
I served..
my brothers and sisters served..
my uncles..
my father..
my grandfathers..
my brothers in law served..
my nephews served..
my family has brown and black and white and red and yet we all served..
we do this because it is our country..
we would gladly die for this country..
my daughters will serve once out of college..
and their children no doubt..
we are citizens.. when i was young we pulled cotton in New Mexico and wore hand me down clothes.. and still we served..
this is our nation.. our country.. by birth.. by right.. by hard work and long hours..it only matters to us that we have opportunity.. to deny that same opportunity to others is disgraceful and shameful and it is what some would do.. and it hurts this country.. which we.. all of us.. made great..
our blood is spilled across the world for the benefit of our nation..
i am hispanic.. latino if you will..
.
PBS uses him to make nostalgia movies - jazz, baseball, ww2 - whatever.
He looks only for facts that support his agenda.
Rather like cherry-picking intel.
If a fact doesn't suit his agenda, it doesn't get in the film.
PBS is alsolutely worthless.
They do nothing but promote their sponsors' products.
Then they show an opera to show they're classy.
However, I didn't see any Swiss/German/Irish Americans pointed out in the episode, and I feel my people's contributions to WW2 should be highlighted. I plan to complain to Ken Burns ASAP.
They were considered white during the war. They had the same rigts and benefits that white americans had at that time.
Now they are trying to rewrite history by playing the wounded minority when at the time they were part of the majority and more then happy to reap those rewards. What a crock.
Van Gogh's works could hardly be called "realism" per se, but they are considered great art none the less.
Let's allow the artist to exercise his singular impression of what he sees and feels, as well as his god given right to speak to it in his own unique voice.
Anything else is censorship, plain and simple.
As I have said elsewhere--If you don't like the film, go out and make your own, but don't you dare to tell me how to make mine!
As for the support services, they are not mostly being contracted out, except for things like cooks and barracks managers. Who the hell joins the military to learn how to cook or manage a barracks anyway? The high-tech MOS's or job skills are in extremely high demand in both the Marine Corps and the Army. The Marine Corps is offering ridiculously high bonuses now to try and keep the high-tech guys in, rather than watch them all leave for jobs paying 70-80k at start up. It has always been that way, but now that the need is greater, the bonuses are much higher. Kind of nice, actually, for those of us who are actually in and serving. The military is a great way to start a career in any number of technical fields and despite what many of you believe, this war isn't really hurting the enlistment or reenlistment rates. Hell, every one of my Marines is begging to get augmented to go back over there and do it again, and we've already been over three times in the last two years.
I actually think this whole Hispanic fuss is a silly bunch of noise without substance. Until we see the entire 14 hours, I guess none of us can judge the whole body of the work. But from what I saw, Part 1 was terrific. As a woman, I note there was little discussion of the women who served, but I'll withhold judgment about whether or what effect that might have on the documentary.
I also note that Lulac and some other Hispanic groups strongly encourage young Hispanics to sign up to go to Iraq. They support having the recruiters come to the high schools, support sending the young Hispanics off to die. I am perplexed at anyone supporting the war in Iraq. The fact that people go to war is not always a sign of courage. Sometimes it is a sign of stupidity and ignorance, and false machismo from the adult males who encourage young boys to go off to other countries to die.
I would like to see these same people out at the high schools forcing the young Hispanic men to stay in school, reverse the shocking drop-out rates. I would like to see them out in force pushing young Hispanic men into college and into careers that make sense, and do not involve killing others.
But I think it's probably a lot more fun, and definitely a lot more macho, to promote war. So that's why we heard so much nonsense this week-end.
"One can only the imagine the agony Burns experienced..."
So hooray for us and to hell with the rest of y'all. We bent him to our will, flexed our mighty muscle and got some justice done.
And how about that whole 1st amendment thing, freedom of speech? Well we'll just call it "artistic license," as in, "The controversy...should matter to all as should the issues around artistic license."
Oh that nasty artistic license, and those equally nasty artists. Thinking that the constitution might actually cover their mangy asses as well. Guess they'll think twice next time they go to make a film, paint, write, speak or otherwise exercise those same rights, by god!
Thank god for this politically correct culture and knee jerk liberal guilt. We can scream racist, bigot, liar, fraud without proof, and the lap dog MSM will eat it up and help us dig the hole to bury you and your rights in.
Yeah, it was easy. We just took the stake of entitled intolerance and drove it right through the beating heart of the Bill Of Rights.
OH, and you Black folks, Gays, women, and other disenfranchised minorities; while you are cheering our success at sticking it to the man, just remember, if you get on our bad side, you could be next.
Ain't Amerika great?
This is a PBS 14 hour documentary that had omitted mention of Mexican-Americans having any contribution in WW2.
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=972862a2e41d338ffbdd54f424bdc79e
Hispanic contributions are well documented, but Burns seeks to 'rewrite' history, and for this he was repeatedly asked by many groups to not omit Hispanic's contribution. As the first link shows you, he refused to many, many, different requests. That he finally acquiesced is to his credit. This has nothing to do with 'politically correct'ness. If Burns were to do a film PRIVATELY, without Federal funds, he could do whatever type of film he chooses to do, even one depicting someone such as yourself, being the lone reason why WW2 or Vietnam or Iraq was won by U.S. forces ane no one would say a peep. But facts are facts and we called him out on the facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_Americans_in_World_War_II