Sesame Street to debut first Asian-American muppet next week

NEW YORK • Sesame Street is welcoming its first Asian-American muppet to the neighbourhood.

Ji-young, a Korean-American seven-year-old who loves playing her electric guitar and skateboarding, will make her debut next week. She will play a role in countering anti-Asian bias and harassment at a time of heightened awareness around the issues.

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit that produces Sesame Street, said it created Ji-young to support families of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage as part of its racial justice initiative, Coming Together.

Sesame Workshop introduced the initiative in summer last year, after violence targeting Asians and Asian-Americans surged during the pandemic.

Sesame Street has been on the air for more than 50 years, but Ji-young is its first Asian-American muppet. The show has had human characters and guests of Asian descent, including Alan Muraoka, who is Japanese-American and owns the fictional Hooper's Store.

Biola University sociology professor Nancy Wang Yuen, an expert on race and racism in Hollywood, said that when she immigrated to the United States from Taiwan at age five, she learnt more English from Sesame Street than from the ESL (English as a second language) classes at her school.

The show was more diverse than most children's programming of the time, but Prof Yuen said it did not have any characters who looked like her when she was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s.

"I think having this muppet who is more culturally specific and is able to speak another language, especially in the current time of rising anti-Asian hate, is so essential to representation," she said.

Ji-young will be introduced on Sesame Street during a special episode on Thanksgiving next Thursday on HBO Max and PBS stations. The show, See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special, will also feature actor Simu Liu and tennis player Naomi Osaka.

In the special episode, the residents of Sesame Street celebrate Neighbour Day, a community event with food, music and games. Someone off screen tells Ji-young to "go back home" and then the other residents, guest stars and friends, including Elmo, offer her support.

Ji-young's puppeteer is Kathleen Kim, who is also Korean-American.

"My one hope, obviously, is to actually help teach what racism is, help teach kids to be able to recognise it and then speak out against it," Kim, 41, told the Associated Press, adding that she hoped the television character would help "normalise" children who looked different.

NYTIMES