Hispanics have served in every U.S. military conflict, from the trenches of the Revolutionary War to the battlefields of Iraq. Yet despite the many Congressional Medals of Honor and Purple Hearts Hispanic soldiers have earned, mainstream media often ignore their military contributions. It almost happened again with The War, a PBS documentary scheduled to debut in late September.

Directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, the nearly 15-hour series strives to tell the story of World War II through personal accounts of people in four U.S. communities. But the program originally didn’t include interviews of any Latinos or mention the hundreds of thousands of Hispanics who fought in the war.

Share Your WWII Experiences

The Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project continues to collect stories from Hispanics about their contributions to World War II. Find out more.

An outcry from Hispanic advocacy groups—including the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Council of La Raza, and the American G.I. Forum—and Hispanic members of Congress prompted the TV producers to be more inclusive. Hispanics were interviewed, and their stories were added to two of the seven episodes.