When actress Sonia Manzano goes out in public, bringing a hanky can be quite helpful. Fans tend to react to her with deep emotion.
They know and love Manzano from Sesame Street, the show she graced as Maria from 1971 to 2015, an extraordinary 44-year run. Her impact on American culture — as the first Latina cast in a regular role on national television — is explored in the documentary Street Smart: Lessons From a TV Icon, which just screened at the Miami Film Festival.
Director Ernie Bustamante spent the better part of a decade on the project.
“I remember in Los Angeles, we were having coffee one day and a woman just approached her and burst into tears,” he recalls. “I remember an executive did that over a Zoom call, and it was because it’s such an important part of their life that she was a
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