Season two of Alma’s Way starts on PBS Kids September 18, and the season premiere has a special guest in the voice cast. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor plays herself.
The show is about six-year-old Alma, a Puerto Rican girl in the Bronx. It is created by Sonia Manzano, who played Maria on Sesame Street, and is a Fred Rogers Productions show. Manzano grew up in the Bronx, and so did Justice Sotomayor.
Speaking with B+C, Manzano said she has known Justice Sotomayor for years through a networking group of Hispanic professional women. Through that group, they worked on the Bronx Children’s Museum project together, as it advanced from a bus rolling around the Bronx to a bricks-and-mortar building.
“She writes children’s books, and she’s interested in children, so why not ask her to be in the opening show of Alma’s Way to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month?” said Manzano, who voices Granny Isa on the program.
In the first half of the episode, “Justice Sonia and Judge Alma,” Alma tries to help a couple friends determine a fair solution to their disagreement. In the second half, “Justice Sonia and Umpire Alma,” Alma is the umpire at a kickball game, and has a tough call to make.
Asked what Sotomayor brings to the episode, besides a bunch of prestige, Manzano said she shows Alma another way of thinking through issues. “The show is about critical thinking, and if there’s one thing a judge needs to do and must do well, it’s think critically and separate one idea from another,” she said. “She’s kind of the epitome of that.”
Sotomayor came to New York to record her parts, same as the rest of the voice cast. Manzano described it as “easy peasy,” though voice director Holly Gregory had some challenging moments. “She said, do you know how hard it was for me to ask the Supreme Court justice to try a line another way?” she said.
Manzano described Justice Sotomayor as “very generous and gregarious,” at times driving her security detail nuts by freely interacting with kids at events.
Manzano grew up in the South Bronx, and said domestic violence was a major factor in her household. She recalls her neighborhood fondly–no guns, minimal drugs, a neighborhood where people looked out for one another. “People were poor, but it was certainly not as frightening as situations you read about now,” she said.
She found “solace and refuge” from the violence in her home, she said, in television. Leave It to Beaver. Father Knows Best. Gunsmoke. American Bandstand.
She went to the High School of the Performing Arts in Manhattan, then college at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. Then she landed on Sesame in 1971, and stayed until 2015, a stunning 44-year run.
Manzano does not watch Sesame Street these days, because there are no children in her home, and she no longer knows the cast members personally.
Manzano is psyched to have a new season of Alma’s Way starting up. Besides the episode with Justice Sotomayor, she’s excited to share an episode set in the New York City transit system featuring busking musicians. One of them loses an amplifier, and “there’s a wild goose chase” in the subways, Manzano said.
She’s pleased with how season one was received. “Somebody my age will say, Oh, I live in Michigan but I’m from the Bronx, and I’m of your generation,” Manzano said. “And I can show my grandkid a little bit about what it was like, a little bit about the culture.”
