Sesame Street Hires Latino Expert

I’m curious to see exactly how Sesame Street is going to portray Latinos. The iconic children’s television show recently hired an expert to guide them in their effort to accurately include the Latino culture in their cast of characters. The hire is a man named Jaime Naidoo, who according to Huffington Post is “an assistant professor at University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies, who’s research focuses on the representation of minority populations in print and non-print media.” That sounds impressive, especially since he lives in the belly of the anti-immigrant beast – Alabama, where the nastiest of anti-immigration laws have been thought-up. It makes ironic sense that a voice of reason should come from a place that could imagine such awful laws.

But the reason I’m curious about the Sesame Street outcome is because the program has a very good record of character diversity. I’m wondering how they can improve on it. The genius behind their success is their no-holds-barred creativity:  it’s impossible to peg Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch or Elmo to any specific ethnic group, culture or race. But it’s easy to understand the diversity of the group. So you conjure another fuzzy character, give it a Latino sounding name, maybe a hint of an accent, have it talk about its daily life and traditions, add a little Spanish and there you go!

Is it that easy? Of course not. That’s probably why I don’t work at Sesame Workshop (formerly known as the Children’s Television Workshop), and why they’ve hired  Naidoo to lead them by the hand.

The Latino Sesame Street character, or characters, is a work in progress (as is the Latino community in the U.S.). I think it’s about time.

[Photo by Theme Park Mom]

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