Yesterday I wrote a letter to Maria from Sesame Street.
It might surprise you to know that her real name is Sonia Manzano. She's now in her fifties and is two-snaps in a circle fabulous!
Why do I think she’s so hot?
What's so special about a lady who's spent the last 30 years conversing with Muppets, teaching kids to count in Spanish, and Spanish vocabulary words like agua and amigo?
For starters, she’s been taking care of her business since her days growing up in the South Bronx when she attended the High School for the Performing Arts in Manhattan—you know, the school from the movie Fame.
Sonia’s swag-sheet has got more inches than well…Big Bird.
She’s a 15-time Emmy award winning writer for Sesame Street (who knew?), a celebrated author of children’s books, a stage and movie actress, a public speaker, writer of a pro-Obama blog for Catalina magazine, and entrepreneur of a Latin-inspired home décor company. She’s also shopping around her newly written memoir.
Now how is it that I’ve gotten on the Sonia Manzano cheerleading squad, you ask?
Well, while flipping channels during a recent quiet evening at home, I stumbled across an episode of Sesame Street.
And there she was: thick, black, glossy hair now shoulder length, much shorter than the mane she’d rocked during the 80s. There are laugh lines creasing her eyes and lips where there once were none, but she still has the same ole warm, familiar smile and shining brown eyes. As I said in the letter I wrote her, seeing her again on my TV screen was like being “instantly transported back to my childhood.”
It also got me wondering, Damn, how long has this woman been on this show? Is her name really Maria? Is that guy Luis really her husband? Is the young woman who portrays their now-grown-up daughter, Gabriela, really their child? Can you tell me how to get…how to get to Sesame Street, so I can get some answers?
Of course Sesame Street isn’t a real place the way I hoped it was when I was a kid, so unless I find a way onto the set of the show, I don't suppose I'll get to ply Sonia with my list of questions. But thank goodness for Google ‘cuz it was there that I found some answers. I typed “Maria from Sesame Street” into the search engine and she popped right up on my computer screen.
Raised in a Spanish-speaking home in the Bronx, Sonia struggled with English and writing during her years at the High School for the Performing Arts. Most of her classmates were from affluent families, traveled the globe and moved in high-culture circles. She, with her Puerto Rican immigrant parentage and working-class background, did not share that lifestyle. “The other students conjugated French verbs at the dinner table and visited Europe during the summer. I struggled the whole time,” she says.
Before high school, Sonia received an elementary education that had been modest at best and she found it difficult to contend with her classmates who were far better prepared scholastically. She described her high school years saying, “I went from being an ace student to being a total failure.”
But she had teachers who encouraged her and urged her to apply to universities that would admit her based on a performance audition and was eventually accepted to Carnegie Mellon University. Amazingly, while still in college, she acted in the Broadway production "Godspell" and was also cast to play Maria on Sesame Street.
Her role on Sesame Street connected her to a feeling of purpose in her life, and this led to Sonia's career in writing. She began writing scripts for the show that highlighted Latino culture, and found that she wasn't just teaching kids words and numbers in Spanish, but becoming an ambassador for cultural acceptance. Before long, her Sesame Street role--which she had originally planned to be temporary--stretched into 30 years, and a ripe opportunity to teach, write, act and serve as a role model to countless little girls, while lighting up the lives of people around the world.
Imagine that...a woman who, at the outset of her life, had difficulty writing basic American English is now a 15-time Emmy award winning writer of a successful children's television show and an author.
Now that's inspirational!
