Many millennials and Gen X-ers have childhood memories of watching Sesame Street on PBS. The series taught generations of children the basics, from the alphabet to the numbers, as well as the importance of critical thinking, compassion, and diversity. Playing alongside Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird was Sonia Manzano, who played Maria on Sesame Street for over 40 years. From 1971 to 2015, she was “The nation’s Tia,” appearing in almost 1,000 episodes and the first Latina to star on a national TV show.

Street Smart: Lessons from a TV Icon follows Manzano’s life from growing up in the Bronx to attending the High School of Performing Arts and later Carnegie Mellon University to her time working on Sesame Street. The film tells her story through animations, reenactments, archival footage, and interviews featuring her friends and colleagues, including Stephen Schwartz, who composed renowned musicals such as Godspell and Wicked, and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Manzano’s friends share insightful stories about her, but it is the animations and reenactments played by Grisselle Escotto that bring her journey to life, providing a more immersive experience. Ernie Bustamante, the director and producer of Street Smart, knew he wanted to include reenactments from the project’s start. After meeting Manzano in 2016, he initially wanted to adapt her memoir, Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx, into a TV sitcom. They teamed up and spent years meeting with producers, but the project never got the green light.

“Producers would love it. Studios would love it, but as the case is in television, we could not get the darn show produced,” said Bustamante.

So in 2022, he decided to produce her journey as a documentary instead – and the path to getting the film made mirrored Manzano’s. Bustamante produced it independently, acquiring skills along the way, such as raising money and finding actors and producers, much like Manzano had to do as she maneuvered through the television industry.

The documentary shows how she had to forge her own path After performing in the off-Broadway production of Godspell, she took on the role of Maria on Sesame Street when she was just 21 years old. Rather than assimilate to fit in, she embraced her Puerto Rican culture and created the character of Maria, bringing a genuine authenticity to the show. She spoke Spanish. Her banter with Oscar the Grouch grew into an endearing friendship. Her real daughter played her TV daughter. She eventually became a writer on the show and won 15 Emmys for her work. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 2016 for her contributions to the show.

Street Smart is a timely reminder on why Latinx representation is so important. In recent years, the number of Latinos behind and in front of the camera is declining. UCLA reported in their 2026 Hollywood Diversity Report that only 6.7% of the leading roles in streaming movies were Latinx actors and 5.1% of the films were directed by Latinx directors.

“I know why I became a writer,” said Bustamante. “It really is to see myself reflected in stories that I want to see, and stories that I want to see feature people that look like me. If I can’t see them, then I guess I have to make them.”

Street Smart is Bustamante’s first feature film, but he has worked in the television industry since 2005. Through it, he has learned how difficult it is to get Latino shows on the air, especially shows that don’t feature caricatures or negative stereotypes. Before the documentary, he produced his own independent films and web series, including Border Patrol, about a group of Latinx Border Patrol agents. Carlos Santos played one of the agents in the comedy, before he starred in Netflix’s Gentefied and Prime Video’s Primo.

Since Street Smart premiered last summer, Bustamante has been doing the festival circuit around the country. Audiences love Manzano’s story, whether they relate to it as a woman, as a Latino, or simply as a human. The film was most recently shown to a diverse crowd at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York to coincide with The Jim Henson Exhibition. Parents that grew up watching Maria on Sesame Street brought their children. It was incredible for Bustamante to see the lines of people waiting to meet Manzano after both screenings that weekend.

“For so long you live with the story just on your own before you premiere the film, and in these opportunities to screen the film, I’ve learned how universal her story really is and how cross-generational it is,” said Bustamante. “That’s been the most enlightening thing that I have found as we screen it all over the country.”

Street Smart is screening at 12:30 pm on July 23 as part of San Diego Comic Con.