Sonia Manzano's Blog, page 3

Sonia Manzano’s Lifetime Of Service To Sesame Street

Original article:  http://gpbnews.org/post/sonia-manzanos-lifetime-service-sesame-street

By Celeste Headlee & Sean Powers

For more than 40 years, Sonia Manzano lived on Sesame Street. She played Maria, who taught her young viewers some of life’s most important lessons. She also had a knack for storytelling. This week, Manzano comes to Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts. She is there for an event paying homage to the women of the Jim Henson Company. We talked to her about her fondest memories on Sesame Street.

Listen to Interview:

http://soniamanzano.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/B-Sonia-2-28-18.mp3

 

 

 

Book Club for Kids & “Revolution”

Episode 59 – The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano

Sonia’s Book is the subject of Episode 59 of the Book Club for Kids featuring celebrity reader actress Yesenia Iglesias. Host Kitty Felde discusses the book with members of the Champion Boys Book Club who debate what kinds of protests are effective in the 21st century.

The Champion Boys Book Club of Washinton DC: back row: Nelson, Joshua, Emmanuel, Akili, Langston, Mehki; front row: Justice, Carter, Chase, Caleb, Damian, Zane

From the article: In this episode, we look back at the 1960’s and a lesser known protest movement. Writer Sonia Manzano (probably better known as “Maria” from Sesame Street) says her encounter with Puerto Rican American activists known as the Young Lords opened her eyes. Her book is “The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. It’s the story of a young girl discovering her inner activist amid the New York protests over garbage collection that grew into a takeover of a neighborhood church.

View this article and listen to the clip here: http://www.bookclubforkids.org/new-blog/2018/1/15/episode-59-the-revolution-of-evelyn-serrano-by-sonia-manzano

 

Writer Sonia Manzano

Celebrity reader, actress Yesenia Iglesias

Read Sonia’s El Conquistador Interview

View the Exclusive Interview by Carmen Alicia Murguía here (PDF).

Bronx Lessons and Democratic Party

I always talk about diversity as I travel the country on speaking engagements.  Of course, I share that sentiment, not only because we are Americans and it is the right and moral thing to do; I also talk about diversity as a good way to solve problems.

I’ll give you an example.  I used to volunteer for a group dedicated to cleaning up the Bronx River, which flowed through my old neighborhood.  The Bronx River connects one of the poorest neighborhood in the USA, (my old one) and one of the wealthiest, Westchester County.  That made the mix of people at Bronx River Alliance meetings racially and economically diverse.  Our dissimilarity allowed us to look at problems differently, allowing us to come up with better solutions faster

The Democratic Party is having trouble delivering a message that is more than platitudes we all already know. (Yes, everyone should have a shot at the American Dream; yes, higher education should be easy to obtain; yes, everyone should have health care etc.) But it’s all the same stuff we keep hearing.

Maybe the Democratic Party needs a shot of multiculturism in their veins to help come up with a clear message.  If the GOP is not what it used to be, perhaps the Democratic Party should change as well.  Perhaps it should become the party of multiculturalism where thinking and openness are welcomed in order to solve specific problems.  Maybe it should become the party that uses diversity to create as opposed to using “monoculturism” to destroy or divide.

Could be?

Must an Eagle Fly Like a Crow?

The title of this essay is a paraphrase of something a Native American leader said in response to the government treatment of his people.  Even after the Native Americans had been soundly beaten, the victors insisted they give up their language, children and customs.  In short, the government wasn’t satisfied to simply win, it had to humiliate and punish further.

I think of those words “Must an Eagle Fly Like a Crow” as the Democrats decide whether to A, obstruct the GOP’s every move or B, work with them.

Let’s consider option A, obstruct the GOP’s every move. My guess is it would send a message but nothing would get done because the GOP has all the power anyway. 

Let’s consider option B, work with them.  I don’t see these Republican sore winners working with anyone. The GOP has won, yet Bannon is still talking about fighting everyday to get the country back.  Republicans win but can’t resist kicking their vanquished in the head for good measure, so working with them is out of the question, as well.

So I don’t know which direction the Democrats should go in, but as I try to recover from the daily kick in the head, I think I know a little bit about how Native American people have felt all through the ages.

Sonia Featured in “Story Monsters Ink”

Sonia was the feature in the March 2017 edition of “Story Monsters Ink”. We’ve included a pdf with the excerpt of her article, which you can download here.

As We Lurch From Crises to Crises

We lurch from crises to crises.  I, for one feel very confused and welcome reading the rants and raves that I so agree with.  But I wonder if we should be careful that those rants and raves make us lose focus.  I read the President’s style of governing was to confuse people and keep them off guard?  He has certainly succeeded in doing that — American citizens are confused and his fellow politicians have been caught off-guard. He has thrown the lives of people all over the world into some degree of chaos as well.

I am trying to channel my feeling by setting aside some time each day to email, or write a representative. Today I sent one sentence to Mitch McConnell asking him to uphold the constitution.  I thanked Lindsey Graham and John McCain for trying to uphold the constitution.  I also sent some money to the ACLU. 

Of course, if you can address every cause, it’s wonderful.  But a way to not get overwhelmed is to pick any one wrong, you want to right.  Is it the injustice of people losing Medicare that concerns you? The negative frightening effect media is having on children. Is it the environment or LGBT issues that keep you up at night?  Is it immigrants? Is it the re-organization of the National Security Council? Is it the Supreme Court nominee?

Defending the Constitution will be arduous, as President Barack Obama has said many times. I will try to do that by focusing, and using the tools democracy has set up for me to use, in lieu of rants. 

The Battle Continues (a Letter from Hillary for America)

Thank you, Sonia.

Thank you for being a part of this campaign. We didn’t get the result we wanted, and of course we will always regret that. But when everything we believe in was on the line, we stood up and battled and gave it our all. I take great pride in that. I hope you do, too.

If you’re still hurting today, that’s ok. You’re not alone. And no doubt there are many difficult days ahead for our country and the world.

But I want to talk about where we go from here, because there has never been more work to do. The people we fought for in this election — working people looking for a better job or a fair wage; immigrant families who deserve to be treated with dignity; women who should have the right to make their own health decisions; Muslims who need to know that America has a place for them; little girls and boys who should know that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up — have never needed us more. They were dealt a setback on Tuesday. But the only way we lose these fights over the long term is if people like us get discouraged, instead of getting back to work.

The dust is still settling from Tuesday’s election, and we don’t have all the answers yet. But for now, here are a few things to consider:

Run for office. If we’ve learned anything from our candidate, it’s that the best way to make change is simply to go out and do it. Get involved in a local or municipal race, whatever it takes to be that change you want to see in your community.
Get involved in your community in other ways. Join a board, help plan community days, volunteer with local progressive groups.
Fight for Democrats. Democrats across the country need your support now more than ever. They need your votes, if you live in their districts, but they also need your time and your resources to keep going.
Support women and girls. Reach out to the women and girls in your family and other circles and let them know that you value and support them. Ask them what their dreams are — then help them get there however you can.
Promote love and kindness where you live. Hillary has lived her life with the words “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can” — and it’s up to us to carry on her work in our communities.

This isn’t the end. Hillary has shown us every single day: The measure of a person is not whether you get knocked down but whether you get back up. As she said on Wednesday, “Let us have faith in each other. Let us not grow weary and lose heart, for there are more seasons to come and there is more work to do.”

With deepest gratitude,

Robby

Robby Mook

Campaign Manager

Hillary for America

Sonia at Hillary field office in Little Havana

 

It’s Rigged!

All this Trump talk about things being rigged makes me have to share this.

 I was robbed of an Academy Award for Sophie’s Choice in the late 80’s.  Yes, indeed. First of all, it was originally called Sonia’s Choice, but when the powers that be, saw my remarkable performance they became frightened that a Nuyorican could be so great.  So they superimposed Meryl Streep’s face over mine.   You see, at that time photo shopping was still a secret clandestine technique and only movie makers had access to it.

It was rigged!!!

Which reminds me of the time I was robbed of a Grammy for my recording of La Traviata.  Maria (Another ‘Maria.”) Callas got it instead.  Why? Because it was rigged! But that’s another story.