There’s a new Muppet on Sesame Street and for the first time, the cute and lovable character is of Filipino descent.
4-year-old TJ made his first appearance on “Sesame Street” this week alongside actor Kal Penn and fellow Muppets Grover and Ji Young as they learned about self-confidence.
At the scene, Grover excitedly announces that he’s going to hop the Sesame Street sign on his unicycle.
Ben says Grover has a lot of it trust, prompting TJ to ask “Trust? Mr. Cal, what is that?”
Ben explains that confidence is believing in yourself and others. TJ later tells Ben that he is showing his confidence by learning Tagalog.
“It’s a language my Filipino family speaks,” he says.
TJ also says he has confidence because he can always ask lola — Tagalog for granny — for help when he doesn’t know a word.
The newest “Sesame Street” puppet is a second-generation Filipino-American boy whose parents are from California. He has a little sister who loves watching him talk funny voices, sing or dance, Sesame Workshop said in an email to USA TODAY.
His grandparents live on the ground floor of the building and he enjoys helping his grandparents in their garden. Sesame Workshop said his grandparents help him learn Tagalog, which comes in handy when his family visits from California.
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The actor who plays the new ‘Sesame Street’ character suffers from impostor syndrome
Chinese Actor Yinan Shentu plays TJ and posted a heartfelt message about the character on Instagram on Sunday.
“Well, it’s finally official… Everyone, I’d like you to meet one of my newest visitors @ Sesame StreetHe wrote “This is his first appearance ever, as he learns more about trust with Kal Penn, Grover and Ji Young!”
In the post, Shentu thanks everyone along the way who helped and helped bring TJ to the show, including other performers on the show and Sesame Workshop’s Director of Talent Awareness, Inclusion, and Content Development, Rosemary Palacios.
Shentu also thanked puppeteer, voice actress and writer Kathleen Kim, who plays Ji Young and other characters in “Sesame Street”, calling her his “instant Asian girlfriend at first sight”.
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Shentu ended his letter by saying that he was “sinking into imposter syndrome”, or what happens when people do this Achievements And they feel they don’t deserve it.
His admission of suffering from imposter syndrome prompts Kim, the Asian actress who voices Ji-young, to chime in with her.
“Someone told me over the weekend that imposter syndrome is a sign that you grow by pushing yourself out or being ambitious outside of your comfort zone,” she wrote. “Keep pushing and growing and learning! You’ve got this!”
Shentu also shared the thoughts on Facebook after seeing responses from people about his character. The screenshots he shared show the excitement from social media users about what TJ’s looks mean to Asians.
One wrote: “It’s Moreno’s brown hair and skin to me.” Social media user. “They got it right. We were finally represented.”
Shentu recalled how there weren’t any Asians in Hollywood when he was younger. If there were Asian actors, he wrote in his post, they were “mostly playing cheap stereotypes.”
When he started seeing more actors and actresses who looked like him, he was ecstatic.
“I can finally look at a screen and see a lot of people who are just like me, in stories rightly told,” he said.
Playing TJ allows him to be a part of that, he said.
“This is a dream that not even the little kid from all those years ago could have even imagined.”
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