The Muppets got a new neighbor on Sesame Street.
Ji-Young is the first Asian American muppet to debut on the children’s show in 52 years, and her name is representative of the moment, said the muppet herself.
In Korean, Young means “brave or courageous and strong,” and Ji means “smart or wise and sesame.”
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Ji-Young is a 7-year-old Korean American who rocks out on her electric guitar and skateboard.
The muppet is voiced by 41-year-old Kathleen Kim, a Korean American puppeteer.
“I feel like I have a lot of weight that maybe I’m putting on myself to teach these lessons and to be this representative that I did not have as a kid,” Kim said.
The newest resident on Sesame Street moved in as a response to anti-Asian hate incidents to “meet the moment,” said Kay Stallings, executive vice president of creative and production for Sesame Workshop.
“When we knew we were going to be doing this work that was going to focus on the Asian and Pacific Islanders experience, we, of course, knew we needed to create an Asian muppet as well,” Stallings said.
Ji-Young will make her debut on a Thanksgiving Day special titled “See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special,” alongside celebrities Simu Liu, Padma Lakshmi, and Naomi Osaka, the Associated Press reported.
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“My one hope, obviously, is to actually help teach what racism is, help teach kids to be able to recognize it and then speak out against it,” Kim said. “But then my other hope for Ji-Young is that she just normalizes seeing different kinds of looking kids on TV.”
