January 27, 2023 • 35 mins
In 1998, three television writers tasked with creating the next hit children's show came up with the idea of a young girl who would go on adventures and ask questions directly to the audience. With the help of consultants, they created a seven-year-old Latina girl named Dora Márquez and the show, "Dora the Explorer." Almost 20 years later, Dora is reimagined as a teenager in a new live-action film called “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.” While some of the elements in Dora’s world are still fictional, the live-action film grounds Dora in reality. In this segment, Latino USA dives into the legacy of "Dora the Explorer" then and now.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, let you know USA Listener Today a show from
our archives. In this episode, we break down the legacy
of Dora the Explorer. Producer Antoina Seihido is going to
take it from here.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
One day in nineteen ninety eight, Chris Gifford and his
colleague Valerie Walsh were singled out by their boss. They
were working at Nick Junior, Nickelodeon's preschool programming, and they
were about to get a very exciting opportunity.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We were given an assignment come up with the next
hit show.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They brought on another writer, Eric Wiener, and the three
of them started to brainstorm potential ideas.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
The bunny and the mom. We would go on an
adventure together and they'd go to the post office, and
then you had a treasure hunt with Kitty Kats.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Right, a group of rodents.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Stinky, I think it was a skunk.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
They brainstormed a lot of options, but finally they decided
to keep it simple.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
We went to a girl pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
They were going to make a show about a young
girl who would ask the audience of preschoolers at home
to help her solve a problem. In every episode, Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm Dora, what's your name? From Fudro Media and PRX.
It's Latino USA. I'm Marie nor Posa today a Latina
icon Dora the Explorer. We dive into what propelled Dora's
rise to preschool programming dominance.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
It's storytime, storytime, story time, story time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So today I'm joining the studio by fellow producer Gene
Amoka Antonia Hi Jannis. And so you and I actually
both independently pitched doing something about Dora the Explorer. And
that's obviously because there's a new film that just came out,
Dora and the loc City of Gold, and.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
You can track our coordinates on your map. That is
not the same.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm an explorer like you, but also because you and
I both have very specific questions about Dora and the
Dora franchise. What sort of intrigued you about her?
Speaker 7 (02:02):
I'm Peruvian and when I realized that there was an
indigenous angle to the film that was set in Peru,
for me, I was kind of just like, how are
they going to execute it? And with the history of
how indigenous people are treated in films, I was curious
to see where was it gonna go?
Speaker 8 (02:19):
What made you curious about the film?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I am actually interested in just Dora. Both you
and I are like a little too old to have
watched Dora, so we didn't grow up with her. But
I have this theory that Dora is the most recognizable
latinx icon in the US. And actually, I'm curious if
anyone would fight me on this. I mean, try to
name somebody more famous than Dora.
Speaker 8 (02:42):
Jlo, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I think Dora is more famous.
Speaker 9 (02:47):
I do.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I think it's probably a close tie between Jlo and Dora.
Speaker 8 (02:56):
Either way, clearly.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
She has become a really recognizable Latina symbol. So why
did she become so big? And what does that mean
for how we as a country think about Latini Da.
So later in the show, Jennis, You're going to tell
us about the new film Dora and the l City
of Gold. But first I'm going to tell you how
this all started. I went on a journey to find
(03:19):
out who is Dora and where did she come from.
At the top of the show, we heard from writer
and producer Chris Gifford. In the late nineteen nineties, when
he and his fellow writers were tasked with coming up
with the next hit TV show, there was another show
that was the king of preschool programming.
Speaker 10 (03:35):
Have you seen Blue My puppy?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So blues clous was the show and Nick Junior. It
started a man named Steve and his dog Blue, who
was animated, and in every episode they would try and
solve a mystery.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
We'll play blues Clues to figure out who's set up
the whole treasure hunt.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Cool our coworker, Maggie Feeling calls Blues Clues a true
crime show for kids, which is hilarious and also completely true,
like the reason why adults like true crime is the
same reason why kids like Blues Clues, because it asked
the kids to participate in sort of solving the mystery,
and Steve would do this in a very particular way.
He would look into the camera and directly ask the
(04:14):
viewer questions.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
What letter does kangaroo start with.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
And wait for the kids to answer, which they did, Okay, right,
And this strategy of asking kids a question and then
looking directly to camera and then pausing for what feels
like a really ridiculous amount of time is appropriately called
in the world of children's programming the pause.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And studies were done that resulted in kids learning more
vocabulary words when they would watch Blues Clues because they
were not passively sitting.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Because of how successful Blues Clues was, Chris and the
other TV writers, they wanted to use the same strategy.
They were going to use this like revolutionary pause. And
at the time, I actually imagined that the character would
be this young white girl, and so they knew that
those were sort of the basics of the show, and
then they started to come up with the other elements
that would make up this white girl's world. We had
the backpack to carry all her tools.
Speaker 11 (05:13):
Back pack, backpack, sack, pack, backpack.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We had the map obviously to help navigate.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
I'm the map, I'm the mapock.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Quite the lyrics in these songs.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
We had the three locations.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
She would visit three places in every episode.
Speaker 8 (05:29):
Then you go across, cross.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
The dial, swipe with the fox.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
You're traditional bad boy, they're no sliping, oh me.
Speaker 7 (05:44):
So these elements they stayed, but one of the main
character become Latina.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So they had been working on the show for months
and their boss went to a conference where she learned
that of the eighty Primetime youth characters under the age
of eighteen, not a single one was LATINX and then
the head of programming at Nick Junior came back from
this conference and she just announced she was like, Okay,
the character that we're working on, she's going to be
Latina and she's gonna be bilingual.
Speaker 8 (06:11):
Were any of the creators latinx?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Okay? So no, definitely not. And so obviously I had
to ask him about this.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
Were you at all.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Hesitant about that? I mean, you know, were you like, oh,
we are not Latinos?
Speaker 8 (06:23):
Of course we were.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I mean we had all of us had kind of
grown up with Sesame Street in a very multicultural view
on TV of you know, what the world looked like,
and that was influential on us. But to come to
us and ask us to make a show about a
Latina heroin was you know, but.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's not That's not how it worked though, because if
they were going to develop a show about a Latina heroin,
I don't think they would have come to us, but
probably would. No, we had a show that we yes,
and they came to us and they said, we like
to develop this character into Latina. So how do we
go about doing that?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
What they did is go and look for a little help.
Speaker 12 (07:07):
Well, at one point they were about eight or ten
or twelve consultants.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
One of those many consultants was doctor Carlos Cortes, whose
voice you just heard. He's a professor at UC Riverside.
Once the New Nick Junior Show was going to be
a Latino show, there were some big questions he and
his fellow consultants had to address.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
How will you use Spanish in a way where kids
feel engaged? What will the world look like? Where is
Dora from?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
All right, so let's start there. Where is Dora from?
So this was a very important question because it would
dictate the rest of the show.
Speaker 12 (07:42):
There was a disagreement among consultants, and some wanted her
to be We've got came up with the idea we
should make her very embedded in one culture, a Mexican
or Puerto Rican or Cuban or what have you.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Chris the creator was partial to Kostu.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Well, maybe we'll make her from Costa Rica. Because I
had been to Costa Rica.
Speaker 12 (08:03):
I loved it.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
I thought it was really nice.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
But this is not what Carlos wanted.
Speaker 12 (08:07):
I took it in the opposite position. I said, look,
there are Latinos in the United States of all kinds
of backgrounds and I think it's important that kids of
different Latino backgrounds be able to identify with Dora.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And as soon as Carlos suggested this, Chris and the
other creators loved the idea.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
And Carlos came in and said, absolutely, she is Pan Latino.
We are building bridges, not erecting.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Barriers, And in general, this idea of not erecting barriers
was important. They wanted to empower that the next kids
in the US. This is Eric Winer again, one of
the creators.
Speaker 13 (08:42):
At the time, Pat Buchanan was running for president, spewing
all this hatred about we don't want Spanish speakers in
our country.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And our Western heritage is going to be handed down
to future generations and not dumped onto some landfill called multiculturalism.
Speaker 13 (08:58):
So this idea of not building barriers gave extra meaning
and heart and urgency to the mission of the show.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So in the late nineteen nineties, pap Buchanan was starting
his campaign to run for president. He would later release
this ad where there's a man at home eating spaghetti
and meatballs and listening to the radio I found of
the executive Order, saying that English is no longer America's
natural language. Then this man starts to choke, and he
rushes over to the phone and starts to dial nine.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
One one listen for your language for Spanish, press, one
for Korean Press.
Speaker 12 (09:31):
Two do you ever miss English?
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Immigration is out of control?
Speaker 12 (09:36):
Press?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Persian Gore writing off English for good?
Speaker 8 (09:38):
What can you do?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Vote for the third party that puts Americans first? Vote
Buchanan for president.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
Press wow, I can feel the scenophobia.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Pap Buchanan's campaign came off the heels of a strong
anti immigrant movement in California. In nineteen ninety four, Prop
one eight seven, a ballot initiative that tried to limit
undocumented immigrant to the state, was introduced, and at the
same time, John Tanton, a prominent anti immigrant activist, founded
a group called Pro English, which advocated for English to
(10:10):
be the only official language of the US. So, with
these developments as a backdrop, this question of how to
incorporate Spanish was a really important one. Carlos the consultant,
he had a very specific idea of how he thought
both Spanish and English should be treated on the show.
Speaker 12 (10:30):
I suggested that they framed Dora as a cross cultural
problem solver, and because Dora was able to speak both
English and Spanish. She was able to bridge and build
a team with Monerol linguos of two different languages.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
The idea was that bilingualism was going to be Dora's superpower,
and the fact that she spoke two languages was something
to be celebrated. The creators also figured out Dora's last name, so, Janie,
I don't know if you knew this, but it's not Explorer.
It's not no, it's not Explorer. It's Marquez. And they
also decided her age, which was seven.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
Okay, so we have Dora. Her last name is Marquez,
and she's a seven year old girl living her best life.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yes, all right, And then they had to figure out
what is this girl gonna look like. They gave her
that signature Bob, which actually was very controversial Nickelodeon.
Speaker 13 (11:26):
Nickelodeon Products people said from the beginning is, guys, the
number one thing that kids like with dolls is hair play.
You've created the anti doll, you've created, and Chris had
to really do battle to preserve that, which was essential
to her character.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Valerie Walsh, one of the creators, found an image that
she just felt really captured sort of the vision of
who Dora the Explorer was.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I gonna say, like Miss Magazine or some magazine back
in nineteen ninety nine where there was a girl I
think her name was Daisy, and to go to school
every day she would have to zip cord across the
Rio n Negro, I think it's in Colombia, and she
had her brother with her in a beat like a sack.
(12:14):
She would have to put him in and zip cord
him across like thirty feet this river. And she had
all like her little backpack too. She was in her uniform,
her school uniform. So it was like, oh my, talk
about being prepared.
Speaker 8 (12:26):
There seems to be a little romanticizing here.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, I feel that. In any case, this is how
Dora came to be. And on August fourteenth, two thousand,
Dora the Explorer aired on Nick Junior for the first time,
and the show was immediately popular. Within less than a year,
(12:49):
the show became the top commercial hit for preschoolers age
two to five, and part of the show's success was
the truly insane amount of research that went into every
single episode.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Each show would be seen by two hundred kids before
we ever.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, so I'm fascinated by that process, how do you
even get two hundred kids like what?
Speaker 4 (13:08):
But a wonderful research department who worked very hard.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
The way it worked is that the creators would read
a storybook version of the episode to a smaller focused
group of kids, and then researchers would come and ask
the kids questions.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Did the story make you feel very happy, happy, okay, sad?
Or angry?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Why would the kids get angry?
Speaker 13 (13:28):
I remember, well there was one time.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Oh no, you're gonna tell a lie story.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
There were two kinds of stories that the kids really
didn't like.
Speaker 13 (13:36):
Cases where our adult consciousness unconsciously had seeped into the story.
Like we were working on a story about an old
fire truck, could you do one last mission? And tires
were falling off the old fire truck and very angry
you know was the result. And we realized we were
doing a story that is the opposite of something that
(13:56):
is the way preschool was thinking.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, little kids are not thinking about that, right right.
Speaker 13 (14:00):
So that turned into a young fire truck doing his
very first question.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
We flipped it completely.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
The second kind of story was one in which the
kids felt like a character was in real danger because
Dora was asking for their help, and so they felt responsible.
Speaker 13 (14:15):
We had a story with the three little pigs get
out and Swiper was chasing them, and kids seemed like
they were so into it, like a rock concert. They
were screaming out the answers, and they were all picking,
not just picking angry, but telling the researchers things they
were scared about, like I need to go home and
lock the door. And the researchers came back and said, guys,
you can't have an interactive show where the preschool or
(14:37):
viewer feels like he's responsible for saving these pigs lives.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So we know how kids impacted the making of the show.
They were unofficial editors of each episode, But how did
Dora impact kids or society in general. To understand Dora's
cultural significance, I spoke to Nicole without the Hernandez.
Speaker 14 (15:00):
Dora first piqued my interest, actually when I saw an
article about the series in Latino Magazine in two thousand
and five, and I started watching as a late twenty
or something.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
She's a professor at the University of Texas in Austin,
and her article, Dora the Explorer, Constructing Latinias and the
Politics of Global Citizenship was actually one of the most
downloaded articles in the Journal of Latino Studies of all time,
and she says that because of Dora's huge popularity, her
representation has had implications on how people understand the Latinx identity.
Speaker 14 (15:33):
You are presented with the kind of generic Latini dad
from Mexico, Porto, Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, etc.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Yeah, and I agree with the professor.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
I mean, I also understand why the creators wanted to
make Dora up on Latina. It may be more inclusive
and other kids feel like they can relate to her,
But then we're kind of erasing the differences between Latin
American countries, you know, culture, identity, all those things that
make us unique.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Just the way that Dora presents with her skin tone
and her straight hair and her brown eyes, it sort
of reinforces this like standard look of a Latina, specifically
that all Latinos are mestizos. This makes of Hispanic and
indigenous descent.
Speaker 14 (16:16):
All of the recent scholarship and research that's come out
in the last five to seven years, especially in Afro
Latino studies, has really been invested in trying to look
at the ways that blackness and indigenity have been erased,
when in reality, if we look at especially new waves
of LATINX migration to the United States, predominantly black and
(16:37):
indigenous people.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Professor Ullote Vanez obviously has critiques for the way that
Dora represents Latinida, but there's actually one aspect of the
show that she thinks is pretty radical.
Speaker 14 (16:48):
I think it's a very powerful message for young people
and for young girls of color in particular. She's sort
of taking command of the narrative about where she's going
to go and move in space.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So Professor weote there, and then this argues that there's
an anti colonial reading of Dora. You know, whereas once
conquistadors or colonists use maps to plunder and ravage communities,
specifically in Latin America, here's a young Latina brown girl
using maps to help her friends and just like live
her life. And there's a last thing to remember about
(17:20):
Dora that is beyond identity. The show centered kids in
a way that hadn't really happened before in children's programming,
and that's because of that pause that we were talking about.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I call my grandma Abuela.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Can you say, Abuela?
Speaker 10 (17:36):
Say Abuela.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Dora had a very special connection with kids, and she
used that connection to try and teach them to keep
an open mind. Here's creator Chris Gifford again.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
We hope that we had an impact on the way
kids felt about people who spoke a different language or
had a different skin color than they did. Hopefully that
we made a little impact in that way.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Coming up on that, you know, Usa, as Dora grows
up and her audience does too, how has the world
changed with them?
Speaker 6 (18:12):
Stay with us, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
When we left off, we learned about how Dora the
Explorer rose as an animated star in children's television. Now
we're going to take a look at the next phase
of Dora and her impact Today. Producer Antonia se Rahuido
as the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
When we left off, we learned about how Dora the
Explorer rose as an animated star in children's television. Now
we're going to take a look at the next phase
of Dora and her impact Today Producer Jancy Emocha and
I continue the story as.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
We know, Dora the Explorer became the top rated commercial
show for preschoolers, which led to Dora toys, clothes, and merchandise.
Speaker 11 (19:45):
He did, dances, plays games, and speak Spanish.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
Yeah, and the door craze didn't stop there. The show
was adapted into over twenty five languages la including Spanish.
It was called Dora Lexplora do.
Speaker 8 (20:14):
Get it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it's so funny because obviously it works in Spanish
in a way it doesn't work in English. There's Explora Loda,
and then Explorer, which doesn't run with Dora.
Speaker 8 (20:23):
Any new name er, I guess.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Dora the Explorer became one of the longest running shows
on Nick Junior. Now it's twenty nineteen and the kids
who have watched Dora are all grown up right now.
They're about early twenties to late teens.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, a lot of them are in college. Some of
them are starting to pay rent, probably getting ready to
vote in their first election.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
Yeah, and I talked to someone who fits that age range.
So did you ever watch Dora growing up?
Speaker 10 (20:53):
Yeah? I watched Dora pretty much every morning before school.
Speaker 8 (20:56):
That's isaveda monair. She's an actress.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
She's eighteen, so right around that original target audience age.
Speaker 10 (21:03):
I would always get called Dora because I had the
bangs and the haircut and pretty much I looked like her,
and so it's funny. It's all coming full circle.
Speaker 7 (21:12):
Can you imagine how many brown girls with your hair
got called Dora in the last nineteen years?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Are we doing the pause? No, I'm sure it's so
many girls.
Speaker 8 (21:25):
Anyways, it worked.
Speaker 7 (21:26):
With Sabella because she's also currently starring in a little
film called Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
Speaker 10 (21:33):
And I'm actually getting to play her. It felt right,
you know, when they told me that I got the part.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
But exploring is not a game, and you don't look
before you leave.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
I'm okay. But Dora is no longer seven in the movie.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
She's a teen and she's searching for Fada Patta, a
lost city of gold of the Incas, and Fatapata follows
the same formula as El Dorado.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
For those who don't now, of course, it's the legend
of an ancient, mythical place filled with goals that treasure
hunters are always looking for.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
And of course Dora is looking to explore it, not
conquer it.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
The other thing that I noticed is that there's this
huge push for these live action films, the ones that
adapt shows or movies that were once cartoons and makes
them into three D or as close to reel as possible.
Most recently, there was a Laddin and the Lion.
Speaker 8 (22:30):
King, your favorite CGI Lion.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Don't even get me started about how like it's not
live action, they're not real liiance In.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
The Dora movie, Swiper the Fox, the traditional bad boy,
and Dora's best friend Boots the Monkey are computer generated characters,
and aside from effects, Dora in many ways is more
real than in the animated series, mostly because she's an
actual human being.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
Just be yourself, Dora.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Okay, come on, and you're gonna miss your flight.
Speaker 8 (23:03):
But one thing hasn't changed.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
She still wears a backpack. Okay, fine, two things. Here's
Isabella again describing her character Dora.
Speaker 10 (23:11):
They didn't want to claim her to like a specific place.
I think it's meant to be broad and mythical so
that people can really just put themselves in the story.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Ah. So Dora is still Panadina.
Speaker 10 (23:22):
And I would like to think that everyone, no matter
where they come from, could relate to Dora, whether they're
from Ecuador or Peru or the States. But they have
hispatic parents, they can all say that.
Speaker 8 (23:34):
They have some Dora in them. But some things are
more authentic.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
In the film, the places are real, or at least
inspired by real places. Dora grows up in the Amazon jungle,
and when she leaves and goes to high school, she
moves to Los Angeles.
Speaker 8 (23:52):
In her big adventure that.
Speaker 7 (23:53):
Takes place in Peru, a place that Isabella is very
familiar with.
Speaker 10 (23:58):
I go back like every year, so there's so much
to explore and then no pun intended.
Speaker 8 (24:06):
As it happens.
Speaker 7 (24:06):
Isabela, the actor playing Dora, also has a connection to Peru.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
She's prouven American.
Speaker 10 (24:12):
My family and I are very close, and a lot
of my really really like close relatives have already immigrated
to the States. But I've got a huge majority of
my family who like only speaks Spanish, who live in Peru,
and some of them speak Quechua.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
Once she got the role of Dora, Isabella learned that
she would have to learn Quechua, an indigenous language that's
spoken in the.
Speaker 10 (24:33):
Andes am Mananchai.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Ancientinka. Impressive, what does it mean all those that sick
shall surely perish?
Speaker 7 (24:54):
She started by listening to an audio recording of her
lines in Quetchua, and they repeated it word for word
and over again. She said she had to learn about
three paragraphs in total, and sometimes in between scenes, Isabella
would call her aunt for help.
Speaker 10 (25:08):
One time, she was like cooking and she's like, what
do you need? She kind of was annoyed, and I'm like,
I know you don't understand right now what this is for,
but I just.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Need your help right now.
Speaker 8 (25:18):
Please.
Speaker 10 (25:19):
She's like, yeah, okay, mammas it preciosa. So she calls
me every time.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
What a family for if it's not to help you
figure out how to pronounce specific words in your ancestors language.
Speaker 7 (25:30):
Hello, right, shout out to my grandparents who taught me
how to say a few words in Quechua and count
Oh my god, what are they? Hook is skuay quin
sat tho one two, three four. Look, I don't want
to show off too much. That's so cool, but counting
is so much different than saying actual sentences. Isabella and
the crew wanted to make sure that keetcho speakers would
be able to understand clearly, so words had to be corrected.
(25:53):
Even after the movie was done.
Speaker 10 (25:55):
A fluent ketcho speaker would know like, hey, that's not right,
so we fixed it. And it's crazy, like the amount
of detail let's put into into movies like these.
Speaker 7 (26:03):
And those details are important to get right because of
how wrong Hollywood has gotten it in the past. Here's
a clip from the two thousand and eight movie Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal School. In the
scene Indiana Jones is in Peru.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
I took Spanish and I don't understand a word of that.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
What was it?
Speaker 12 (26:21):
Quechua local income dialect.
Speaker 14 (26:23):
I rode with Pancho Villo.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
A couple of this guy's.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Spoken Pancho Villa.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
This clip blows my mind. I can't believe it. He
says he learned Quechua from Pancho Villa's man. Pancho Villa
was a Mexican revolutionary. Also, this is only ten years ago.
Like all of this is wild, right.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
The film has other inaccuracies, like placing Meso American pairmids
that look like they belong to Toichitnizza in the middle
of Peru somewhere.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
And unfortunately that could give the impression that the idea
that everything that is below Rio Grande is pretty much
the same thing, and we know that's not true.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
That's Americo Mendosa Mori, he's a PFFT. Quechua and Spanish
at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the only programs
that promote the Quechua language in the US. America is
from Peru, and he identifies as indigenous.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
There's a legacy of in the civilization of Indienus groups
and Indianus cultures, and even today we still have to
quote unquote prove the value and relevance and knowledge of
Indienus cultures and peoples. So when these representations and intentionally
misrepresent then we are reinforcing those stereotypes.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
Just like the Door cartoon brought on consultants, America was
brought on to consult on the Door.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
Film to represent Andian culture in a major film that
many people who maybe will learn for the very first
time about the Andes and Quechua. I saw it as
a unique opportunity.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
Americo helped make sure that the Ketcho dialogue was accurate.
Inside note, there are many different dialects in the Quetchu language.
The one used in the film is called Gusco Goyao.
Aside from language, Americo also worked on incorporating fantasy with
reality and building a last city of the Incas in
the proven Amazon.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
The movie is about a city called Parapata. Parapata is
a name in Quetcha which means the rainy place, the
rainy Golina.
Speaker 7 (28:29):
Colina means helen Spanish. And there's also a nod to
Inca mythology with the incorporation of Kauaiyaka, an Inca princess
played by Krianka Kilcher who is of proven Indigenous ascent.
There's also a part where Dora interprets a set of
Inca constellations, which was a real tool that Incas used
to tell time. Even in an action scene, the writers
(28:51):
were able to add information about the Inca's irrigation systems.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I don't think this is a puzzle.
Speaker 8 (29:00):
Is a pookiout? What a pokyo?
Speaker 5 (29:03):
It's an agent underground Aqua doct Aca engineers built some
of the most elaborate irrigation systems ever devised water from
above us.
Speaker 15 (29:11):
They have a four year old baby girl. She hasn't
seen the film, so I'm excited to show her. It's
going to be probably the first movie that I've done
that she's going to be able to watch.
Speaker 8 (29:21):
That's who Henny that it is. He's part of the cast.
Speaker 7 (29:24):
He plays the guide that leads Dora through the jungle
and if you recognize his voice, it's because he's also
a very famous Mexican comedian and he was also an
executive producer on the film.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
So did you ask him why now? Why would they
make a Dora film in this very moment?
Speaker 7 (29:40):
It's a great question, And yes, I did ask Ohenna,
why do we have a Dora film coming out in
twenty nineteen.
Speaker 15 (29:47):
Right now, there's a fever for doing live action and
I think Dora is an icon for kids and now
that especially now that Latinos are being so let's say
I asked by this administration.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Ohenyo is of course talking about the anti immigrant rhetoric
that has come from President Trump and members of his administration.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's such similar rhetoric to what Pap Buchanan was saying
when the creators first envisioned Dora. I think it's important
to emphasize that Pap Buchanan was a third party candidate
when he was running for president. Now those ideas are
coming from the White House.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
It's interesting to think about Dora and her place in
our society today versus when Dora first came out.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, like, in the face of today's anti immigrant rhetoric,
what does Dora represent? And I asked Carlos Cortez, a
cultural consultant, about this, and he says that to understand
her impact on her legacy, you need to look at
what's happening in the generation that grew up watching Dora.
Most of those are college aged kids, gen zers.
Speaker 12 (30:55):
What we're finding is that college kids today, when asked
question which is more important free speech or inclusivity, which
is the Dora message of being inclusive, they lean to
inclusivity as a larger value than free speech.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
A twenty eighteen Knight Foundation survey found that over fifty
percent of college students value diversity and inclusivity over free speech.
And according to Carlos, even twenty years ago, people wouldn't
have even thought about asking that question. That's how radically
people have changed their opinions, specifically young people.
Speaker 12 (31:29):
But I think Dora is part of the process of
affecting the values of young people to make inclusivity a
more important value. And I think to that degree, I
think it's fabulous.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
This is an interesting example. But even if more college
age students value inclusivity, that's not reflected in our wider
political reality.
Speaker 8 (31:49):
Yeah, people are divided.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Super divided and Nicolio Dirnandez, the academic that we spoke
to earlier who wrote that paper about Dora, she says
that there's a contrast between the sort of world that
was presented in Dora to kids, So this sort of
like borderless, open place where a young brown girl feels
really safe and welcome, and the reality of what the
(32:10):
US is right now. And she says that for her
students who grew up watching Dora, it's actually kind of
hard to stomach that contrast.
Speaker 14 (32:18):
And so on the one hand, as you mentioned, Dora
represents this tremendous amount of freedom for young Latina girls,
and then you turn around and you sort of look at,
you know, the rise of the Karcial state via immigration
and anti Latino sentiment in the United States, and it
is confusing. I think it's very confusing. And we have
a young generation of latinx as they're calling themselves now,
(32:41):
kind of shaking their heads and saying, wait, Like, there
was this world that I imagined as a young person
that was about freedom, articulated in things like Dora the Explore,
and then I'm confronted instead with this highly policed existence
on the basis of my skin color or my act.
Speaker 7 (33:00):
As we've been reporting the story, we've learned that cultural sensitivity.
It's something that's growing, and it's something that's becoming more
and more important in mass media, in films and TV shows.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, clearly we heard from the creators it was important
to them then, but now just like the conversation is
going to step further.
Speaker 7 (33:16):
But at the same time, people are openly showing their
hate towards people of color, immigrant.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Communities, Latino specifically, and that's a question.
Speaker 8 (33:23):
Nobody really knows what that means for us.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, like, why is it that at the same time
that there's sort of like a progression in representation, there's
also a progression in disdain for those communities that are
being represented. And I think that that just goes to
show that the values that Dora first tried to teach kids,
those are still really relevant. It's twenty years later and
(33:48):
her message hasn't changed.
Speaker 7 (33:57):
On a final note, Antonia, Yah, we did it, naythmos.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
This episode originally aired in twenty nineteen and was produced
by Janie Jamoca and Antonio Srijuido. The Latino USA team
includes Andrea Lopez Crusado, Marta Martinez, Daisy Contreres, Mike Sargent,
Victoria Strada, Rinaldo Leanos, Junior Alejandra Sarrasad, Patricia Sulbran and Julia.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Rocha, with help from raoulu Perees.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Our editorial director is Fernande Santos. Our director of Engineering
is Stephanie Lobo. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our
associate engineers are Gabriel Obias and jj Carubin. Our marketing
manager is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's Foundation Fellow
is Elizabeth Lenthal Torris. Our theme music was composed by
Zane Lubinos. I'm your host and executive producer Maria jo
(34:54):
Josa joined us and on our next episode. In the meantime,
look for us on social media, Act Let the USA,
and remember Don't Yes Joe.
Speaker 11 (35:05):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, creates a brighter future for the nation's children
by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity, and transforming communities.
The New York Women's Foundation funding women leaders that build
solutions in their communities, and celebrating thirty years of radical
(35:27):
generosity and funding for Latino usa is coverage of a
culture of health is made possible, in part by a
grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Breakdotology, break her down,
Hey, let you know USA Listener Today a show from
our archives. In this episode, we break down the legacy
of Dora the Explorer. Producer Antoina Seihido is going to
take it from here.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
One day in nineteen ninety eight, Chris Gifford and his
colleague Valerie Walsh were singled out by their boss. They
were working at Nick Junior, Nickelodeon's preschool programming, and they
were about to get a very exciting opportunity.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
We were given an assignment come up with the next
hit show.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
They brought on another writer, Eric Wiener, and the three
of them started to brainstorm potential ideas.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
The bunny and the mom. We would go on an
adventure together and they'd go to the post office, and
then you had a treasure hunt with Kitty Kats.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Right, a group of rodents.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Stinky, I think it was a skunk.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
They brainstormed a lot of options, but finally they decided
to keep it simple.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
We went to a girl pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
They were going to make a show about a young
girl who would ask the audience of preschoolers at home
to help her solve a problem. In every episode, Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm Dora, what's your name? From Fudro Media and PRX.
It's Latino USA. I'm Marie nor Posa today a Latina
icon Dora the Explorer. We dive into what propelled Dora's
rise to preschool programming dominance.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
It's storytime, storytime, story time, story time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So today I'm joining the studio by fellow producer Gene
Amoka Antonia Hi Jannis. And so you and I actually
both independently pitched doing something about Dora the Explorer. And
that's obviously because there's a new film that just came out,
Dora and the loc City of Gold, and.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
You can track our coordinates on your map. That is
not the same.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm an explorer like you, but also because you and
I both have very specific questions about Dora and the
Dora franchise. What sort of intrigued you about her?
Speaker 7 (02:02):
I'm Peruvian and when I realized that there was an
indigenous angle to the film that was set in Peru,
for me, I was kind of just like, how are
they going to execute it? And with the history of
how indigenous people are treated in films, I was curious
to see where was it gonna go?
Speaker 8 (02:19):
What made you curious about the film?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So I am actually interested in just Dora. Both you
and I are like a little too old to have
watched Dora, so we didn't grow up with her. But
I have this theory that Dora is the most recognizable
latinx icon in the US. And actually, I'm curious if
anyone would fight me on this. I mean, try to
name somebody more famous than Dora.
Speaker 8 (02:42):
Jlo, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I think Dora is more famous.
Speaker 9 (02:47):
I do.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I think it's probably a close tie between Jlo and Dora.
Speaker 8 (02:56):
Either way, clearly.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
She has become a really recognizable Latina symbol. So why
did she become so big? And what does that mean
for how we as a country think about Latini Da.
So later in the show, Jennis, You're going to tell
us about the new film Dora and the l City
of Gold. But first I'm going to tell you how
this all started. I went on a journey to find
(03:19):
out who is Dora and where did she come from.
At the top of the show, we heard from writer
and producer Chris Gifford. In the late nineteen nineties, when
he and his fellow writers were tasked with coming up
with the next hit TV show, there was another show
that was the king of preschool programming.
Speaker 10 (03:35):
Have you seen Blue My puppy?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So blues clous was the show and Nick Junior. It
started a man named Steve and his dog Blue, who
was animated, and in every episode they would try and
solve a mystery.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
We'll play blues Clues to figure out who's set up
the whole treasure hunt.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Cool our coworker, Maggie Feeling calls Blues Clues a true
crime show for kids, which is hilarious and also completely true,
like the reason why adults like true crime is the
same reason why kids like Blues Clues, because it asked
the kids to participate in sort of solving the mystery,
and Steve would do this in a very particular way.
He would look into the camera and directly ask the
(04:14):
viewer questions.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
What letter does kangaroo start with.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
And wait for the kids to answer, which they did, Okay, right,
And this strategy of asking kids a question and then
looking directly to camera and then pausing for what feels
like a really ridiculous amount of time is appropriately called
in the world of children's programming the pause.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And studies were done that resulted in kids learning more
vocabulary words when they would watch Blues Clues because they
were not passively sitting.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Because of how successful Blues Clues was, Chris and the
other TV writers, they wanted to use the same strategy.
They were going to use this like revolutionary pause. And
at the time, I actually imagined that the character would
be this young white girl, and so they knew that
those were sort of the basics of the show, and
then they started to come up with the other elements
that would make up this white girl's world. We had
the backpack to carry all her tools.
Speaker 11 (05:13):
Back pack, backpack, sack, pack, backpack.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
We had the map obviously to help navigate.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
I'm the map, I'm the mapock.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Quite the lyrics in these songs.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
We had the three locations.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
She would visit three places in every episode.
Speaker 8 (05:29):
Then you go across, cross.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
The dial, swipe with the fox.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
You're traditional bad boy, they're no sliping, oh me.
Speaker 7 (05:44):
So these elements they stayed, but one of the main
character become Latina.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So they had been working on the show for months
and their boss went to a conference where she learned
that of the eighty Primetime youth characters under the age
of eighteen, not a single one was LATINX and then
the head of programming at Nick Junior came back from
this conference and she just announced she was like, Okay,
the character that we're working on, she's going to be
Latina and she's gonna be bilingual.
Speaker 8 (06:11):
Were any of the creators latinx?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Okay? So no, definitely not. And so obviously I had
to ask him about this.
Speaker 8 (06:18):
Were you at all.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Hesitant about that? I mean, you know, were you like, oh,
we are not Latinos?
Speaker 8 (06:23):
Of course we were.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I mean we had all of us had kind of
grown up with Sesame Street in a very multicultural view
on TV of you know, what the world looked like,
and that was influential on us. But to come to
us and ask us to make a show about a
Latina heroin was you know, but.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's not That's not how it worked though, because if
they were going to develop a show about a Latina heroin,
I don't think they would have come to us, but
probably would. No, we had a show that we yes,
and they came to us and they said, we like
to develop this character into Latina. So how do we
go about doing that?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
What they did is go and look for a little help.
Speaker 12 (07:07):
Well, at one point they were about eight or ten
or twelve consultants.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
One of those many consultants was doctor Carlos Cortes, whose
voice you just heard. He's a professor at UC Riverside.
Once the New Nick Junior Show was going to be
a Latino show, there were some big questions he and
his fellow consultants had to address.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
How will you use Spanish in a way where kids
feel engaged? What will the world look like? Where is
Dora from?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
All right, so let's start there. Where is Dora from?
So this was a very important question because it would
dictate the rest of the show.
Speaker 12 (07:42):
There was a disagreement among consultants, and some wanted her
to be We've got came up with the idea we
should make her very embedded in one culture, a Mexican
or Puerto Rican or Cuban or what have you.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Chris the creator was partial to Kostu.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Well, maybe we'll make her from Costa Rica. Because I
had been to Costa Rica.
Speaker 12 (08:03):
I loved it.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
I thought it was really nice.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
But this is not what Carlos wanted.
Speaker 12 (08:07):
I took it in the opposite position. I said, look,
there are Latinos in the United States of all kinds
of backgrounds and I think it's important that kids of
different Latino backgrounds be able to identify with Dora.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And as soon as Carlos suggested this, Chris and the
other creators loved the idea.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
And Carlos came in and said, absolutely, she is Pan Latino.
We are building bridges, not erecting.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Barriers, And in general, this idea of not erecting barriers
was important. They wanted to empower that the next kids
in the US. This is Eric Winer again, one of
the creators.
Speaker 13 (08:42):
At the time, Pat Buchanan was running for president, spewing
all this hatred about we don't want Spanish speakers in
our country.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And our Western heritage is going to be handed down
to future generations and not dumped onto some landfill called multiculturalism.
Speaker 13 (08:58):
So this idea of not building barriers gave extra meaning
and heart and urgency to the mission of the show.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So in the late nineteen nineties, pap Buchanan was starting
his campaign to run for president. He would later release
this ad where there's a man at home eating spaghetti
and meatballs and listening to the radio I found of
the executive Order, saying that English is no longer America's
natural language. Then this man starts to choke, and he
rushes over to the phone and starts to dial nine.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
One one listen for your language for Spanish, press, one
for Korean Press.
Speaker 12 (09:31):
Two do you ever miss English?
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Immigration is out of control?
Speaker 12 (09:36):
Press?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Persian Gore writing off English for good?
Speaker 8 (09:38):
What can you do?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Vote for the third party that puts Americans first? Vote
Buchanan for president.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
Press wow, I can feel the scenophobia.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Pap Buchanan's campaign came off the heels of a strong
anti immigrant movement in California. In nineteen ninety four, Prop
one eight seven, a ballot initiative that tried to limit
undocumented immigrant to the state, was introduced, and at the
same time, John Tanton, a prominent anti immigrant activist, founded
a group called Pro English, which advocated for English to
(10:10):
be the only official language of the US. So, with
these developments as a backdrop, this question of how to
incorporate Spanish was a really important one. Carlos the consultant,
he had a very specific idea of how he thought
both Spanish and English should be treated on the show.
Speaker 12 (10:30):
I suggested that they framed Dora as a cross cultural
problem solver, and because Dora was able to speak both
English and Spanish. She was able to bridge and build
a team with Monerol linguos of two different languages.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
The idea was that bilingualism was going to be Dora's superpower,
and the fact that she spoke two languages was something
to be celebrated. The creators also figured out Dora's last name, so, Janie,
I don't know if you knew this, but it's not Explorer.
It's not no, it's not Explorer. It's Marquez. And they
also decided her age, which was seven.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
Okay, so we have Dora. Her last name is Marquez,
and she's a seven year old girl living her best life.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yes, all right, And then they had to figure out
what is this girl gonna look like. They gave her
that signature Bob, which actually was very controversial Nickelodeon.
Speaker 13 (11:26):
Nickelodeon Products people said from the beginning is, guys, the
number one thing that kids like with dolls is hair play.
You've created the anti doll, you've created, and Chris had
to really do battle to preserve that, which was essential
to her character.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Valerie Walsh, one of the creators, found an image that
she just felt really captured sort of the vision of
who Dora the Explorer was.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I gonna say, like Miss Magazine or some magazine back
in nineteen ninety nine where there was a girl I
think her name was Daisy, and to go to school
every day she would have to zip cord across the
Rio n Negro, I think it's in Colombia, and she
had her brother with her in a beat like a sack.
(12:14):
She would have to put him in and zip cord
him across like thirty feet this river. And she had
all like her little backpack too. She was in her uniform,
her school uniform. So it was like, oh my, talk
about being prepared.
Speaker 8 (12:26):
There seems to be a little romanticizing here.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, I feel that. In any case, this is how
Dora came to be. And on August fourteenth, two thousand,
Dora the Explorer aired on Nick Junior for the first time,
and the show was immediately popular. Within less than a year,
(12:49):
the show became the top commercial hit for preschoolers age
two to five, and part of the show's success was
the truly insane amount of research that went into every
single episode.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Each show would be seen by two hundred kids before
we ever.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, so I'm fascinated by that process, how do you
even get two hundred kids like what?
Speaker 4 (13:08):
But a wonderful research department who worked very hard.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
The way it worked is that the creators would read
a storybook version of the episode to a smaller focused
group of kids, and then researchers would come and ask
the kids questions.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Did the story make you feel very happy, happy, okay, sad?
Or angry?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Why would the kids get angry?
Speaker 13 (13:28):
I remember, well there was one time.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Oh no, you're gonna tell a lie story.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
There were two kinds of stories that the kids really
didn't like.
Speaker 13 (13:36):
Cases where our adult consciousness unconsciously had seeped into the story.
Like we were working on a story about an old
fire truck, could you do one last mission? And tires
were falling off the old fire truck and very angry
you know was the result. And we realized we were
doing a story that is the opposite of something that
(13:56):
is the way preschool was thinking.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, little kids are not thinking about that, right right.
Speaker 13 (14:00):
So that turned into a young fire truck doing his
very first question.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
We flipped it completely.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
The second kind of story was one in which the
kids felt like a character was in real danger because
Dora was asking for their help, and so they felt responsible.
Speaker 13 (14:15):
We had a story with the three little pigs get
out and Swiper was chasing them, and kids seemed like
they were so into it, like a rock concert. They
were screaming out the answers, and they were all picking,
not just picking angry, but telling the researchers things they
were scared about, like I need to go home and
lock the door. And the researchers came back and said, guys,
you can't have an interactive show where the preschool or
(14:37):
viewer feels like he's responsible for saving these pigs lives.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So we know how kids impacted the making of the show.
They were unofficial editors of each episode, But how did
Dora impact kids or society in general. To understand Dora's
cultural significance, I spoke to Nicole without the Hernandez.
Speaker 14 (15:00):
Dora first piqued my interest, actually when I saw an
article about the series in Latino Magazine in two thousand
and five, and I started watching as a late twenty
or something.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
She's a professor at the University of Texas in Austin,
and her article, Dora the Explorer, Constructing Latinias and the
Politics of Global Citizenship was actually one of the most
downloaded articles in the Journal of Latino Studies of all time,
and she says that because of Dora's huge popularity, her
representation has had implications on how people understand the Latinx identity.
Speaker 14 (15:33):
You are presented with the kind of generic Latini dad
from Mexico, Porto, Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, etc.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
Yeah, and I agree with the professor.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
I mean, I also understand why the creators wanted to
make Dora up on Latina. It may be more inclusive
and other kids feel like they can relate to her,
But then we're kind of erasing the differences between Latin
American countries, you know, culture, identity, all those things that
make us unique.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Just the way that Dora presents with her skin tone
and her straight hair and her brown eyes, it sort
of reinforces this like standard look of a Latina, specifically
that all Latinos are mestizos. This makes of Hispanic and
indigenous descent.
Speaker 14 (16:16):
All of the recent scholarship and research that's come out
in the last five to seven years, especially in Afro
Latino studies, has really been invested in trying to look
at the ways that blackness and indigenity have been erased,
when in reality, if we look at especially new waves
of LATINX migration to the United States, predominantly black and
(16:37):
indigenous people.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Professor Ullote Vanez obviously has critiques for the way that
Dora represents Latinida, but there's actually one aspect of the
show that she thinks is pretty radical.
Speaker 14 (16:48):
I think it's a very powerful message for young people
and for young girls of color in particular. She's sort
of taking command of the narrative about where she's going
to go and move in space.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
So Professor weote there, and then this argues that there's
an anti colonial reading of Dora. You know, whereas once
conquistadors or colonists use maps to plunder and ravage communities,
specifically in Latin America, here's a young Latina brown girl
using maps to help her friends and just like live
her life. And there's a last thing to remember about
(17:20):
Dora that is beyond identity. The show centered kids in
a way that hadn't really happened before in children's programming,
and that's because of that pause that we were talking about.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I call my grandma Abuela.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Can you say, Abuela?
Speaker 10 (17:36):
Say Abuela.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Dora had a very special connection with kids, and she
used that connection to try and teach them to keep
an open mind. Here's creator Chris Gifford again.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
We hope that we had an impact on the way
kids felt about people who spoke a different language or
had a different skin color than they did. Hopefully that
we made a little impact in that way.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Coming up on that, you know, Usa, as Dora grows
up and her audience does too, how has the world
changed with them?
Speaker 6 (18:12):
Stay with us, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
When we left off, we learned about how Dora the
Explorer rose as an animated star in children's television. Now
we're going to take a look at the next phase
of Dora and her impact Today. Producer Antonia se Rahuido
as the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
When we left off, we learned about how Dora the
Explorer rose as an animated star in children's television. Now
we're going to take a look at the next phase
of Dora and her impact Today Producer Jancy Emocha and
I continue the story as.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
We know, Dora the Explorer became the top rated commercial
show for preschoolers, which led to Dora toys, clothes, and merchandise.
Speaker 11 (19:45):
He did, dances, plays games, and speak Spanish.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
Yeah, and the door craze didn't stop there. The show
was adapted into over twenty five languages la including Spanish.
It was called Dora Lexplora do.
Speaker 8 (20:14):
Get it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, it's so funny because obviously it works in Spanish
in a way it doesn't work in English. There's Explora Loda,
and then Explorer, which doesn't run with Dora.
Speaker 8 (20:23):
Any new name er, I guess.
Speaker 7 (20:26):
Dora the Explorer became one of the longest running shows
on Nick Junior. Now it's twenty nineteen and the kids
who have watched Dora are all grown up right now.
They're about early twenties to late teens.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, a lot of them are in college. Some of
them are starting to pay rent, probably getting ready to
vote in their first election.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
Yeah, and I talked to someone who fits that age range.
So did you ever watch Dora growing up?
Speaker 10 (20:53):
Yeah? I watched Dora pretty much every morning before school.
Speaker 8 (20:56):
That's isaveda monair. She's an actress.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
She's eighteen, so right around that original target audience age.
Speaker 10 (21:03):
I would always get called Dora because I had the
bangs and the haircut and pretty much I looked like her,
and so it's funny. It's all coming full circle.
Speaker 7 (21:12):
Can you imagine how many brown girls with your hair
got called Dora in the last nineteen years?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Are we doing the pause? No, I'm sure it's so
many girls.
Speaker 8 (21:25):
Anyways, it worked.
Speaker 7 (21:26):
With Sabella because she's also currently starring in a little
film called Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
Speaker 10 (21:33):
And I'm actually getting to play her. It felt right,
you know, when they told me that I got the part.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
But exploring is not a game, and you don't look
before you leave.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
I'm okay. But Dora is no longer seven in the movie.
Speaker 7 (21:51):
She's a teen and she's searching for Fada Patta, a
lost city of gold of the Incas, and Fatapata follows
the same formula as El Dorado.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
For those who don't now, of course, it's the legend
of an ancient, mythical place filled with goals that treasure
hunters are always looking for.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
And of course Dora is looking to explore it, not
conquer it.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
The other thing that I noticed is that there's this
huge push for these live action films, the ones that
adapt shows or movies that were once cartoons and makes
them into three D or as close to reel as possible.
Most recently, there was a Laddin and the Lion.
Speaker 8 (22:30):
King, your favorite CGI Lion.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Don't even get me started about how like it's not
live action, they're not real liiance In.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
The Dora movie, Swiper the Fox, the traditional bad boy,
and Dora's best friend Boots the Monkey are computer generated characters,
and aside from effects, Dora in many ways is more
real than in the animated series, mostly because she's an
actual human being.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
Just be yourself, Dora.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Okay, come on, and you're gonna miss your flight.
Speaker 8 (23:03):
But one thing hasn't changed.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
She still wears a backpack. Okay, fine, two things. Here's
Isabella again describing her character Dora.
Speaker 10 (23:11):
They didn't want to claim her to like a specific place.
I think it's meant to be broad and mythical so
that people can really just put themselves in the story.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Ah. So Dora is still Panadina.
Speaker 10 (23:22):
And I would like to think that everyone, no matter
where they come from, could relate to Dora, whether they're
from Ecuador or Peru or the States. But they have
hispatic parents, they can all say that.
Speaker 8 (23:34):
They have some Dora in them. But some things are
more authentic.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
In the film, the places are real, or at least
inspired by real places. Dora grows up in the Amazon jungle,
and when she leaves and goes to high school, she
moves to Los Angeles.
Speaker 8 (23:52):
In her big adventure that.
Speaker 7 (23:53):
Takes place in Peru, a place that Isabella is very
familiar with.
Speaker 10 (23:58):
I go back like every year, so there's so much
to explore and then no pun intended.
Speaker 8 (24:06):
As it happens.
Speaker 7 (24:06):
Isabela, the actor playing Dora, also has a connection to Peru.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
She's prouven American.
Speaker 10 (24:12):
My family and I are very close, and a lot
of my really really like close relatives have already immigrated
to the States. But I've got a huge majority of
my family who like only speaks Spanish, who live in Peru,
and some of them speak Quechua.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
Once she got the role of Dora, Isabella learned that
she would have to learn Quechua, an indigenous language that's
spoken in the.
Speaker 10 (24:33):
Andes am Mananchai.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Ancientinka. Impressive, what does it mean all those that sick
shall surely perish?
Speaker 7 (24:54):
She started by listening to an audio recording of her
lines in Quetchua, and they repeated it word for word
and over again. She said she had to learn about
three paragraphs in total, and sometimes in between scenes, Isabella
would call her aunt for help.
Speaker 10 (25:08):
One time, she was like cooking and she's like, what
do you need? She kind of was annoyed, and I'm like,
I know you don't understand right now what this is for,
but I just.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Need your help right now.
Speaker 8 (25:18):
Please.
Speaker 10 (25:19):
She's like, yeah, okay, mammas it preciosa. So she calls
me every time.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
What a family for if it's not to help you
figure out how to pronounce specific words in your ancestors language.
Speaker 7 (25:30):
Hello, right, shout out to my grandparents who taught me
how to say a few words in Quechua and count
Oh my god, what are they? Hook is skuay quin
sat tho one two, three four. Look, I don't want
to show off too much. That's so cool, but counting
is so much different than saying actual sentences. Isabella and
the crew wanted to make sure that keetcho speakers would
be able to understand clearly, so words had to be corrected.
(25:53):
Even after the movie was done.
Speaker 10 (25:55):
A fluent ketcho speaker would know like, hey, that's not right,
so we fixed it. And it's crazy, like the amount
of detail let's put into into movies like these.
Speaker 7 (26:03):
And those details are important to get right because of
how wrong Hollywood has gotten it in the past. Here's
a clip from the two thousand and eight movie Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal School. In the
scene Indiana Jones is in Peru.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
I took Spanish and I don't understand a word of that.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
What was it?
Speaker 12 (26:21):
Quechua local income dialect.
Speaker 14 (26:23):
I rode with Pancho Villo.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
A couple of this guy's.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
Spoken Pancho Villa.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
This clip blows my mind. I can't believe it. He
says he learned Quechua from Pancho Villa's man. Pancho Villa
was a Mexican revolutionary. Also, this is only ten years ago.
Like all of this is wild, right.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
The film has other inaccuracies, like placing Meso American pairmids
that look like they belong to Toichitnizza in the middle
of Peru somewhere.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
And unfortunately that could give the impression that the idea
that everything that is below Rio Grande is pretty much
the same thing, and we know that's not true.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
That's Americo Mendosa Mori, he's a PFFT. Quechua and Spanish
at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the only programs
that promote the Quechua language in the US. America is
from Peru, and he identifies as indigenous.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
There's a legacy of in the civilization of Indienus groups
and Indianus cultures, and even today we still have to
quote unquote prove the value and relevance and knowledge of
Indienus cultures and peoples. So when these representations and intentionally
misrepresent then we are reinforcing those stereotypes.
Speaker 7 (27:39):
Just like the Door cartoon brought on consultants, America was
brought on to consult on the Door.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
Film to represent Andian culture in a major film that
many people who maybe will learn for the very first
time about the Andes and Quechua. I saw it as
a unique opportunity.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
Americo helped make sure that the Ketcho dialogue was accurate.
Inside note, there are many different dialects in the Quetchu language.
The one used in the film is called Gusco Goyao.
Aside from language, Americo also worked on incorporating fantasy with
reality and building a last city of the Incas in
the proven Amazon.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
The movie is about a city called Parapata. Parapata is
a name in Quetcha which means the rainy place, the
rainy Golina.
Speaker 7 (28:29):
Colina means helen Spanish. And there's also a nod to
Inca mythology with the incorporation of Kauaiyaka, an Inca princess
played by Krianka Kilcher who is of proven Indigenous ascent.
There's also a part where Dora interprets a set of
Inca constellations, which was a real tool that Incas used
to tell time. Even in an action scene, the writers
(28:51):
were able to add information about the Inca's irrigation systems.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
I don't think this is a puzzle.
Speaker 8 (29:00):
Is a pookiout? What a pokyo?
Speaker 5 (29:03):
It's an agent underground Aqua doct Aca engineers built some
of the most elaborate irrigation systems ever devised water from
above us.
Speaker 15 (29:11):
They have a four year old baby girl. She hasn't
seen the film, so I'm excited to show her. It's
going to be probably the first movie that I've done
that she's going to be able to watch.
Speaker 8 (29:21):
That's who Henny that it is. He's part of the cast.
Speaker 7 (29:24):
He plays the guide that leads Dora through the jungle
and if you recognize his voice, it's because he's also
a very famous Mexican comedian and he was also an
executive producer on the film.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
So did you ask him why now? Why would they
make a Dora film in this very moment?
Speaker 7 (29:40):
It's a great question, And yes, I did ask Ohenna,
why do we have a Dora film coming out in
twenty nineteen.
Speaker 15 (29:47):
Right now, there's a fever for doing live action and
I think Dora is an icon for kids and now
that especially now that Latinos are being so let's say
I asked by this administration.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Ohenyo is of course talking about the anti immigrant rhetoric
that has come from President Trump and members of his administration.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's such similar rhetoric to what Pap Buchanan was saying
when the creators first envisioned Dora. I think it's important
to emphasize that Pap Buchanan was a third party candidate
when he was running for president. Now those ideas are
coming from the White House.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
It's interesting to think about Dora and her place in
our society today versus when Dora first came out.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, like, in the face of today's anti immigrant rhetoric,
what does Dora represent? And I asked Carlos Cortez, a
cultural consultant, about this, and he says that to understand
her impact on her legacy, you need to look at
what's happening in the generation that grew up watching Dora.
Most of those are college aged kids, gen zers.
Speaker 12 (30:55):
What we're finding is that college kids today, when asked
question which is more important free speech or inclusivity, which
is the Dora message of being inclusive, they lean to
inclusivity as a larger value than free speech.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
A twenty eighteen Knight Foundation survey found that over fifty
percent of college students value diversity and inclusivity over free speech.
And according to Carlos, even twenty years ago, people wouldn't
have even thought about asking that question. That's how radically
people have changed their opinions, specifically young people.
Speaker 12 (31:29):
But I think Dora is part of the process of
affecting the values of young people to make inclusivity a
more important value. And I think to that degree, I
think it's fabulous.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
This is an interesting example. But even if more college
age students value inclusivity, that's not reflected in our wider
political reality.
Speaker 8 (31:49):
Yeah, people are divided.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Super divided and Nicolio Dirnandez, the academic that we spoke
to earlier who wrote that paper about Dora, she says
that there's a contrast between the sort of world that
was presented in Dora to kids, So this sort of
like borderless, open place where a young brown girl feels
really safe and welcome, and the reality of what the
(32:10):
US is right now. And she says that for her
students who grew up watching Dora, it's actually kind of
hard to stomach that contrast.
Speaker 14 (32:18):
And so on the one hand, as you mentioned, Dora
represents this tremendous amount of freedom for young Latina girls,
and then you turn around and you sort of look at,
you know, the rise of the Karcial state via immigration
and anti Latino sentiment in the United States, and it
is confusing. I think it's very confusing. And we have
a young generation of latinx as they're calling themselves now,
(32:41):
kind of shaking their heads and saying, wait, Like, there
was this world that I imagined as a young person
that was about freedom, articulated in things like Dora the Explore,
and then I'm confronted instead with this highly policed existence
on the basis of my skin color or my act.
Speaker 7 (33:00):
As we've been reporting the story, we've learned that cultural sensitivity.
It's something that's growing, and it's something that's becoming more
and more important in mass media, in films and TV shows.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, clearly we heard from the creators it was important
to them then, but now just like the conversation is
going to step further.
Speaker 7 (33:16):
But at the same time, people are openly showing their
hate towards people of color, immigrant.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Communities, Latino specifically, and that's a question.
Speaker 8 (33:23):
Nobody really knows what that means for us.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, like, why is it that at the same time
that there's sort of like a progression in representation, there's
also a progression in disdain for those communities that are
being represented. And I think that that just goes to
show that the values that Dora first tried to teach kids,
those are still really relevant. It's twenty years later and
(33:48):
her message hasn't changed.
Speaker 7 (33:57):
On a final note, Antonia, Yah, we did it, naythmos.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
This episode originally aired in twenty nineteen and was produced
by Janie Jamoca and Antonio Srijuido. The Latino USA team
includes Andrea Lopez Crusado, Marta Martinez, Daisy Contreres, Mike Sargent,
Victoria Strada, Rinaldo Leanos, Junior Alejandra Sarrasad, Patricia Sulbran and Julia.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Rocha, with help from raoulu Perees.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Our editorial director is Fernande Santos. Our director of Engineering
is Stephanie Lobo. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our
associate engineers are Gabriel Obias and jj Carubin. Our marketing
manager is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's Foundation Fellow
is Elizabeth Lenthal Torris. Our theme music was composed by
Zane Lubinos. I'm your host and executive producer Maria jo
(34:54):
Josa joined us and on our next episode. In the meantime,
look for us on social media, Act Let the USA,
and remember Don't Yes Joe.
Speaker 11 (35:05):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, creates a brighter future for the nation's children
by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity, and transforming communities.
The New York Women's Foundation funding women leaders that build
solutions in their communities, and celebrating thirty years of radical
(35:27):
generosity and funding for Latino usa is coverage of a
culture of health is made possible, in part by a
grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Breakdotology, break her down,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!