Ken Burns's and PBS's New "Separate But Equal" Hispanic Veteran Deal...

That's the strong implication of Paul Farhi's Washington Post story from April 18th:

A PBS official said yesterday that filmmaker Ken Burns will not re-cut his documentary on World War II -- a statement that disappointed and angered minority-group activists who on Tuesday said they believed Burns and PBS had committed to reediting the film to address their concerns about its content.

Programming chief John Wilson, seeking to clarify PBS's earlier statements, said yesterday that Burns's 14 1/2 -hour documentary, "The War," is complete. That statement, however, leaves unresolved the complaints from some Latino and American Indian organizations, which have been pressing Burns and PBS for months to incorporate into the film material about Latino and American Indian service members.

Burns has resisted any suggestion that he is changing "The War," despite his agreement to film additional material to try to address advocates' concerns. A spokesman for Burns insisted yesterday that the filmmaker isn't "reediting" his work, as The Washington Post reported yesterday....

...Some of the disagreement over Burns's -- and PBS's -- intentions turns on small but critical semantic distinctions, particularly whether the unproduced new material will be a "part" of "The War," or instead air as a supplement.

Latino advocates are wary that the additional content that Burns has promised will appear during breaks in the film, or otherwise outside the main story arc. They insist that the new material should be part of the story itself, which focuses on the wartime experiences of four towns or cities in different regions of the country.

But that will not be the case, according to Burns's representative and Wilson.

"It does not satisfy our concerns to be an amendment or some kind of addendum" to the documentary, said Raul Tapia, a spokesman for the American G.I. Forum, a Latino veterans organization. Latinos "who contributed so much to winning the war deserve better. They are not an addendum. They stood up for their country, and we are standing up for them."