A major piece of your childhood is leaving the place where the air is sweet. One of Sesame Street’s most iconic human beings, Maria Figueroa, is moving out.
Maria’s real name is Sonia Manzano. Having joined the show in 1971 at the age of 22, Manzano’s career has nearly spanned the life of the show itself. She not only played Maria but wrote for the show as well, earning 15 Daytime Emmy Awards over her long career. She is now 65 and retiring from the acting business, as she announced Tuesday during a public address at the American Library Association Annual Conference.
At the time Manzano joined the show, she was the first Latina television actress to have a regular role on American television….ever. The world has changed dramatically in 44 years. Maria’s purpose was to teach young children Spanish, a role that was once unique to her but has been dwarfed in significance by Dora the Explorer since the late 90’s. In the early 70’s Sesame Street was the only educational program targeted to kindergarteners; nowadays preschool shows are a billion-dollar industry, and young children have entire channels of shows to pick from at any given time.
Maria was also the only human character on the series to have an arc, getting married to husband Luis in the 80’s and giving birth to daughter Gabi in the 90’s. It is unknown how Maria will be written out of Sesame Street, nor what will happen to the characters of Luis and Gabi. But at least she won’t be exiting the way Mr. Hooper did, sparing Big Bird more trauma.
