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Screenshot from Mountain Lake PBS video "Art Express"
Screenshot from Mountain Lake PBS video "Art Express"

After 44 years in the neighborhood Maria moves out of Sesame Street

It is the end of an era. Puerto Rican American actress Sonia Manzano announced this week that after 44 years of playing “Maria” on Sesame Street, she is…

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It is the end of an era. Puerto Rican American actress Sonia Manzano announced this week that after 44 years of playing “Maria” on Sesame Street, she is retiring from the iconic children’s television show. Manzano broke the news at the American Library Association Annual Conference.

 

The actress joined "Sesame Street" in 1971 at a time when representation of people of color in television was almost non-existent.  “When I was a kid there were no people of color on television and there were no people of color in books either. And I grew up wondering how I was going to contribute to a society that didn’t see me because I felt invisible,” Manzano said during ALA Annual Conference. 

Vox.com reported that “Manzano recalled being inspired by Sesame Street's inclusion of Black and Latino actors before joining the show. "I have never been asked to speak with a Spanish accent," she told the audience.

"Race relations are very difficult" to teach children, she added, "because we're teaching two things at the same time: self-esteem and appreciation of others."

The character of Maria started as a teenager in “Sesame Street” and grew older with the show, Manzano experienced marriage and pregnancy in real life, and so did her character. As her bio in the show’s webpage describes: “Viewers have watched Maria grow up. She was a first crush, a best friend, and a baby sitter, telling stories and making everyone laugh. She dated and then married Luis, and they later had a daughter, Gabi, who is now grown up.”

For her work with “Sesame Street” Manzano won 15 Emmys  — for writing. The actress has written a memoir, "Becoming Maria," scheduled to be published this summer.

"It has always intrigued me how surprised other people are when they see white, black and brown people all belonging to the same Latino family," Manzano stated during a 1993 LATimes interview. "They don't understand how we identify along cultural and not racial lines."

She discusses the importance of celebrating Latin American culture on television during the early 1970's in the following interview with Mountain Lake PBS.

 

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