The filmmakers of American Sons, producer Laura Varela, along with producer and director Andrew Gonzales, skillfully use the video diaries of Corporal  Jorge “JV” Villareal, the young Marine who did not return, which he recorded for his family in San Antonio, Texas. Those diaries serve as the storyteller’s voice of day-to-day life during his tour of duty in Afghanistan; he tragically did not survive.

The film is skillfully edited into a bookend, non-linear, fractured structure that goes from the video diaries to ten years after, with his surviving Marine brothers sharing their thoughts about J. V., their struggles trying to reconnect back into the “real world”, and tender scenes of his family recalling memories of their son, JV Villareal.

The various emotional and haunting testimonials by Villareal’s brothers in arms, spoken in frank,  intimate streetwise vernacular about their PTSD, isolation, alienation, and hopelessness, often rise to the level of working-class, urban free verse poetry. There’s an eloquent urgency to their authenticity that echoes the pain of servicemen from past conflicts and foreshadows what may be awaiting those serving in the military now.

The overarching truth of American Sons is in its honoring and celebration of those generations of men and women who have given us so much and all too often received so little in return.

American Sons also underscores and reminds us of the tremendous contributions and historic participation of Latinos in the U.S. armed forces since the days of the American Revolution to the present.

It is an honorable legacy of our heritage that Latinos are the most decorated ethnic group in the long and storied annals of American military conflicts.

The story of JV Villareal and his Marine brothers in American Sons is an important chapter in the book of that proud history.

American Sons is a co-production of Infinite Warrior LLC, Latino Public Broadcasting, and Black Public Media. Major funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and additional support by the Jacquie Jones Memorial Fund. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional funding is provided by Bexar County and the City of San Antonio Arts and Culture.

American Sons premieres on PBS on Monday, January 12. Check local listings for time.

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