NO WINNER has been declared in the war between Ken Burns and the Latino community over his seven-part epic called "The War."

Leaving out Latino contributions to World War II was bad enough. Adding a sprinkle of interviews to the finished product doesn't even begin to bolster the story enough to appease the critics.

The dispute about Burns' omission of Latinos from his soon-to-be-aired documentary seemed to be moving toward a resolution in the spring after talks were held with PBS executives and the filmmaker.

Rep. Albio Sires, D-West New York, added his voice to the outraged tone in a Congressional Hispanic Caucus letter criticizing the PBS decision to air the World War II documentary that ignores the contribution of at least half a million Latinos.

Burns made a reluctant about-face, adding on-camera interviews to the ends of three episodes. Two of the three new veterans who tell their stories are Latino and one is Native American.

A spokesman for Burns' film, Joe DePlasco, says the 15-hour film is unchanged except for the interviews, which added half an hour. DePlasco carefully emphasized that the interviews appear before the credits roll at the end of the episodes.

Burns' solution is only OK: He can do better. No one could realistically ask him to completely reedit the series before it airs in September. But records and images were available for a deeper look at Latinos' contribution to the war effort.

History overlooks Latinos

History in general overlooks Latino military men, says Noemi Figueroa Soulet, who found great archival footage for "The Borinqueneers," a film about Puerto Rico's 65th Infantry Regiment.

"This is another example -- like the Tuskegee airmen, the Japanese-American Nisei unit, the Buffalo Soldiers -- of minority military contributions. I just wanted to add to the Latino chapter of this history." Her film airs this week on NJN and WNET-13 television.

Instead of doing just enough to silence the critics, Burns could take the high road and work with aspiring Latino film students to create an hour-long film exploring the missing pieces. The Latino community shouldn't have to work this hard to get recognition. Twelve of them got the Congressional Medal of Honor as soldiers.

The controversy started when a University of Texas journalism professor, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, found holes in Burns' concept while working on an oral history project.

Rivas-Rodriguez is steaming over his attempt to simply throw them a bone. Here, gnaw on this and stop barking. It's not about just tacking on a few interviews, she said, pointing to a richer heritage of Latino contributions to World War II -- military and non-military.

Allies supplied her with anecdotes like the one about a worker named Alvarado, who was deported in the 1940s. He got his draft notice in Mexico, fought at Normandy, became a German prisoner of war, and ended up coming back to father 14 kids in America. Ten of them joined the military.

Rivas-Rodriguez' own recollections are rich in detail specific to Latin culture. Burns' project ignores civilian contributions like her mother's.

"They worked in factories. They were Rosita the Riveter," she said. "My mother was in San Antonio at Kelly Air Force Base ... and they worked on some of the instruments that were used on the airplanes.

"The Latino experience is deep and rich," Rivas-Rodriguez said. "The reason this issue has really resonated with Latinos across the board is it isn't only a Mexican-American issue, it is very much a Puerto Rican issue, a Cuban-American -- every ethnicity that's considered Latino has some experience with this and feels very strongly about it."

Suspicion

Mobilizing the troops here in the East, Angelo Falcón, president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, feels that PBS and Burns' people haven't been dealing in good faith.

"There's a lot of suspicion," said Falcón. "He gets a lot of money for his proposals full of talk about diversity....We're not trying to change his point of view; we're trying to get him to be inclusive."

Falcón feels like he's under attack, fending off accusations that his side is trying to censor Burns' material. The balance of power seems to shift with each skirmish. The winner has yet to be determined.

Lawrence Aaron is a Record columnist. Contact him at aaron@northjersey.com. Send comments about this column to letterstotheeditor@northjersey.com.