Ismael Cruz Córdova
It’s about time another Latino joined Maria, Luis and the Muppets on that apparently difficult to find Street they call Sesame. Hard to believe, but that beloved PBS children’s show has been around for forty-four years, and recently its current producers decided they needed a new face, so they held an open casting call for a new Hispanic character…and came up with Ismael Cruz Córdova, 26, to play “Armando,” a young writer.
Cordova’s own history is a testament to the show he’s joining. In a recent interview with Yahoo TV, he said he actually learned read because of Sesame Street. “Being cast is beautiful, it’s nostalgic, and it brings me back to when I was watching the show in the mountains of Puerto Rico, knowing not a word of English, and watching it to learn English,” he said. “I began learning English watching the show, and I later polished my English because I revisited the show when I was taking AP English and had confusion over vowel sounds. So I checked out an episode and it finally clicked.”
Ismael Cruz Córdova
And if anyone’s concerned about “Mando” falling into any contemporary stereotypes–fear not. This young man loves words and technology alike. “My character is a writer—poetry, short stories, anything related to words,” he says. “But he also embraces social media and technology. He tries to use whatever he has at hand, if it’s a phone, a recorder, a computer—as fancy or as limited as it is—for self-expression.”
So grab your remotes, gather the youn’guns, and take a look. The new, 44th season of Sesame Street, with all the old characters and a brand new Latino, premiered Monday, September 16 on PBS.
