cover story
Kathleen Herles,
The Billion Dollar Voice
-Carolina L. Saucedo
O
ver three decades ago, Sesame Now, almost a decade later, Dora Dora uses her bilingual skills to com-
Street occasionally presented the Explorer is loved by preschoolers municate with her amigos to overcome
the idea of introducing basic for Dora’s outdoor adventures and obstacles and reach her goals.
Spanish into their program. This mul- cheerful personality. The seven-year Behind the scenes of the hit show
ticulturalism perspective didn’t hit the old Dora is a proud Latina who speaks are voices of Harrison Chad as Dora’s
screen big until 1999 when creators fluent English and Spanish all while best friend Boots the Monkey, Sasha
Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh and Eric going on adventures with her backpack Tora, Dora’s purple backpack and
Weiner introduced the first episode of and Mapa and meeting other bilingual Marc Weiner as Dora’s Mapa who pro-
Dora the Explorer. Brown Johnson, animals. Dora’s outgoing, cheerful and vides travel guidance to Dora. Togeth-
President of Animation at Nickelodeon imaginative personality captures the er, with Kathleen Herles, they worked
decided to make Dora the Explorer a preschool audience all while maintain- hard and helped make the show a suc-
bilingual Latina heroine after having ing true to the Latin heritage. The show cess. Their cheerful voices in song and
attended a Children Now diversity con- introduces the idea of living in a multi- dance attract the attention of the pre-
ference that focused on television’s cultural world by teaching the young school audience and teach them a thing
under representation of minorities. viewers Spanish words and phrases as or two in Spanish.
Kathleen Herles, was the voice of
Dora. The New York native is of Peru-
vian descent who began her career at
the age of 4 by attending modeling
school and beauty pageants. At the age
of 6, Herles met her manager, Shirley
Grant who started her off to the adven-
ture of making and becoming Dora.
The talented young voice of Dora,
has received several awards that
include a 2004 Latina Excellence
Diversity Award from Hispanic
Magazine for her role as Dora and a
2006 Youth Award from Latin Pride
Magazine. In 2007, Herles was nomi-
nated for a NAACP Image Award for
‘Outstanding Performance in
Youth/Children’s Program’. Herles,
alongside America Ferrera and Eva
Longoria, won the 2007 Imagen Award
for Best Actress.
Herles, not only is an inspiration to
the preschool audience as Dora, but is
also an inspiration to her peers and the
Hispanic community. Herles recently
decided to leave the show as Dora to
pursue her own education. During a
64 Celebrating 15 Years of Embracing Diversity WWW.HNMAGAZINE.COM
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