by José de la Isla

In what some key advocates view as a major breakthrough in the Latino community’s confrontation with PBS over Ken Burns’ upcoming TV documentary on World War II, Burns has approved a five-point statement agreeing to add new material on Hispanic veterans within the body of the documentary, significantly changing his 14-hour film.

The documentary, titled “The War,” consists of seven two-hour segments. It is scheduled to air beginning Sept. 23.

The major shift by Burns was summarized in a May 17 e-mail from American G.I. Forum national commander Antonio Gil Morales. Its details and significance were shared with Hispanic Link News Service by Manuel Mirabal, board chairman of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility.

The Hispanic community did not back off from this fight because we were dealing witha behemoth like PBS or because we were dealing with the pre-eminent American documentarian, Mirabal said. “We believed we were right, and we would not take less than we deserved. And we did this all together.

The G.I. Forum and HACR helped create a coalition of Hispanic organizations and leaders to confront PBS and Burns after University of Texas, Austin, journalism professor Maggie Rivas-Rodríguez first brought public attention to Burns’ failure to include any mention of the Hispanic role in WWII. Rivas-Rodríguez founded and still directs the UT based U.S. Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project.

Under the banner “Defend the Honor,” she organized the first meeting on the issue with PBS President Paula Kerger, seeking and gaining support from a number of Hispanic advocacy, educational, media, veterans and political organizations.

From the start, the Forum and HACR were among the fiercest critics of Burns and PBS.

The new development resulted from a marathon 14-hour meeting in New York City between Washington, D.C., lawyer-lobbyist Raúl Tapia, representing the interests of the G.I. Forum and HACR, with Burns and Florentine Films, his production team. In what was expected to be a discussion of no more than a couple of hours, the negotiators stayed at the table from the morning of May 9 until 2 a.m. the following day.

The session concluded with Burns agreeing that the narrative and voices of Hispanic World War II veterans would be incorporated into the main body of the documentary.

A summary of the points of agreement, as prepared by the G.I. Forum’s Morales, was forwarded to Burns, who had traveled to France for the Cannes film festival. He communicated his concurrence May 17 with the points as they had been fleshed out at the New York meeting, according to Mirabal.

These included the recognition that Burns’ production team had conducted several compelling” interviews with decorated Latino veterans and that “their stories will be incorporated in a way that is consistent with the film’s focus on individual experiences” and that “Mr. Burns will personally direct and produce the creation of this new material.

With the recent involvement of Latino filmmaker Héctor Galán, Florentine has been shooting interviews, described as “very powerful,” with Latino veterans in Texas and elsewhere to “deepen the nation’s understanding” of the sacrifices of as many as a halfmillion Latinos and Latinas made to the war effort.

As the controversy developed, PBS steadfastly maintained that no changes in the body of the completed documentary could be made because that would infringe upon Burns’ artistic integrity. The Hispanic groups regularly raised questions as to how Burns’ production team could have spent five or six years researching “The War” without recognizing its omission of Hispanics.

Various groups, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, expressed strong concerns about the oversight. The Caucus called for and got a separate meeting with PBS leaders. A few PBS corporate funders also became involved.

PBS was not included in the New York deliberations. Nor was Maggie Rivas- Rodríguez, who made an earlier decision not to join in the coalition formed by HACR and the Forum.

(José de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. Reach him at joseisla3@yahoo.com). © 2007

by Adam Saytanides

MEXICO CITY – Mexico has to clean up corruption before the nation can develop its economy, confront organized crime, and staunch the flow of immigrants north. But this won’t happen overnight.

The practice of paying a mordida, or bribe, is just too deeply ingrained.

In Mexico, it seems to seep into every aspect of life.

Payoffs for special treatment or favors are not uncommon in any society – corruption scandals and quid pro quos abound in Washington, D.C., for example. But in different cultures, people draw their ethical lines differently.

In Mexico, it’s a fine line between a tip, or propina, which is offered voluntarily, and the mordida, which is a bribe paid out of a sense of coercion. So fine, in fact, that the line between a tip and a bribe can fold back upon itself.

My goddaughter Isabel and I faced this very dilemma recently in Chilpancingo, the Guerrero state capital. I made the trip from Mexico City to be there for her bar exam, or titulación. Isabel had asked me to help her prepare for the big day.

The preparations involved arranging fruit baskets and refreshments for the three professors who’d be administering the exam. But she also faced a dilemma, and wanted my advice: How much cash should she give them?

Isabel was super-stressed over the notion that she should pay 1,500 pesos (US $135) to each of the professors on the panel.

That’s a small fortune for a girl from a remote, indigenous mountain village. Where she comes from, you’d be lucky to find a job that pays eight or nine bucks a day. No one in her family of campesinos ever made it through high school, let alone gone to a university and become a lawyer.

Isabel was panicked over this last-minute expense.

How do you know that you have to pay your professors 1,500 pesos? I asked.

She got that number from a friend who’d passed her bar exam a few days earlier.

The friend said that one of the professors told her, straight up, that he charges 1,500 pesos for the service. This same professor was on Isabel’s panel, but he didn’t ask her for money.

Isabel had studied hard. But she couldn’t avoid this nagging feeling that passing the bar might depend on how much cash she forked over the day before the exam.

In Mexico, the bar exam is oral. At her university, each student chooses the three law professors who will administer the oral exam. The test is a rather subjective process. The bar candidate faces three lawyers seated at a long table — adorned with fresh fruit — and must answer a series of questions about the legal system. You pass or fail right there on the spot.

I asked Isabel if her friend was a good student.

“No, not really. I am much better prepared than she is,” Isabel replied.

Well, perhaps the professor knew this, and she had to pay him off in order to pass, I suggested.

“Don’t insult my career!” she protested. “We’re not paying them off. This is something we give for their time, as a symbol of our appreciation.

I told her it appeared that professors were looking for a mordida, not that appreciative students were offering their mentors a tip.

“Look, that’s just how things work here,” Isabel said with resignation. “What do you think I should do?”

She left me alone to contemplate the dilemma.

It’s a tricky one. You want to feel like you’ve earned your credentials.

But on the other hand, you don’t want to stiff a professor who may expect to be paid something, lest he fail you in revenge. Isabel’s whole life, not to mention her family’s social standing, hinged on the results of this exam.

It seemed too risky not to pay. Yet 1,500 pesos was an outrageous sum. Her first job as a lawyer could pay as little as 3,300 pesos a month, about $300. My gut feeling was she should give them something — enough that they’d have no reason to feel slighted, but as little as she could reasonably get away with.

When Isabel returned, I asked her what she felt was best. Her thinking was basically the same: pay them for insurance against failure, but not so much you feel like you’re buying the results.

She took three envelopes from her stack of schoolbooks and notes and set them on the bed. Each contained three 200-peso notes. She sealed the envelopes after carefully writing her name on the inside flap. Then we hopped into a minibus that took us from her barrio up on the hill into downtown Chilpancingo so she could pay off her professors and make her dreams come true.

(Adam Saytanides is a journalist and radio producer currently based in Mexico City. Reach him by e-mail at asaytanides@gmail.com). © 2007 END