Dallas cartoonist picks up where Ken Burns leaves off

by Marisa Treviño of of Latina Lista

This weekend is the PBS premier of Ken Burns' 15-hour series "The War". If you've been too busy with those mambo lessons these past several months then you might not know that it’s Burns' attempt to create yet another war epic on the events of World War II.

This time, though, the war is being told through the eyes of soldiers who lived through those horrific experiences. The only trouble is that Latinos were very much a part of that war and among the heroes, though no one would have known it from seeing the original version of the program.

I guess Burns doesn't know any Latinos or have any on his staff who could have pointed out this glaring omission because it's cost him and PBS a lot of time, press, and money to rectify his film to be the accurate, credible recount of history that his past projects are known for and on which PBS has built their own reputation.

Burns complied with all the criticism levied against him by Latino groups, notably by Austin-based Defend the Honor, and he has added 28 additional minutes to his original film to include the ignored perspectives of Latino and Native American (hello? Code Talkers!) War veterans.

But there are some in the Latino community who still don't quite trust that Burns has included "meaningful" content about Latino contributions, rather than just something to just shut us all up.

So, some very talented hermanos among us have decided to create their own homage to our Latino World War II war veterans. Starting this week and running through September 27, we can learn about these untold stories of Latino heroics during WWII in the nationally syndicated comic strip Baldo.

Local cartoonist and co-creator, Hector Cantu, created a new character to tell the stories of these soldiers. His name is Benito "Benny" Ramirez and according to Cantu, he's a composite character based on actual stories of several Hispanic WWII veterans.

To start catching up on Latino WWII history, check them out online and realize that there are more stories that deserve to be told — and remembered.

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