Remembering Emilio Delgado, And The Legacy Of Luis On 'Sesame Street'

On March 10, 2022, actor Emilio Delgado, best known as Fix-It Shop owner Luis Rodriguez on the classic children's TV series Sesame Street, passed away after a battle with Multiple Myeloma.

Delgado played Luis for nearly four decades, during which his character ran multiple businesses, married his Fix-It shop business partner, Maria, and raised a daughter, Gabi. During this time, Luis was one of the most beloved of the show's human cast.

In Emilio Delgado's memory, let's look back at the wonderful legacy Luis leaves behind on Sesame Street.

Teaching kids Spanish

After a more successful than expected first season, Sesame Street decided to try some new ideas when it returned for season two, one of which was an attempt to teach Spanish to primarily English speaking children. These early attempts were deemed a failure, with many critics at the time dismissing them as Tokenism. So, after some serious talks, the concept of these Spanish lessons was rebooted for the third season, which included the introduction of actors and characters with Hispanic backgrounds, including Emilio Delgado as Luis, and Sonia Manzano as Maria, who would become Luis's wife nearly sixteen seasons later. At the time, Delgado was only expecting the role of Luis to last for two years.

During Luis's early appearances, he ran the L & R Fix-It shop with Rafael, played by future The Addams Family and Street Fighter star Raul Julia. Julia departed the series after appearing in just four episodes, leaving Luis as the sole owner of the Fix-It Shop, at least for a while. Luis was praised as friendly, hard-working, and honest defying the usual stereotypes of Mexican characters on television at the time. Delgado grew attatched to his character and his responsibility on Sesame Street. In the lead up to the show's fourth season, Delgado was named coordinator of the Children's Television Workshop's Bilingual Task Force, and travelled around the U.S meeting with bilingual groups in order to further improve Sesame Street's Spanish language segments. During one of these trips, Delgado would proudly declare:

"We don't just teach Spanish, we teach IN Spanish."

Helping to break gender barriers

As mentioned earlier, Luis was left as the sole owner of the Fix-It Shop. However, by Sesame Street's seventh season, Luis's workload at the shop had grown to the point that it was becoming difficult to handle on his own, and the main Street Story of episode 0832 has him falling behind. Maria visits the shop hoping to discuss something with him, but he is too busy to pay her much attention, until, without prompting, she fixes a clock brought in to the shop by Big Bird, and a child's wagon that Luis has not gotten around to yet.

Maria then explains that she has seen how overworked Luis is, knows about fixing things, and is willing to help him out in the shop if needed. A relieved Luis hires her immediately. At the time, the storyline of Luis hiring Maria was considered groundbreaking, as 'fixing things' was deemed by many to be a primarily male profession. However, after hiring her, Luis always acknowledges that Maria is just as good at fixing things as he is. In season twelve, when Maria nervously asks for a raise, Luis instead makes her a full partner in the Fix-It Shop.

Interestingly, this all transpires years before the beginning of the characters' romantic relationship.

Helping explain death to children

In 1982, after the death of Will Lee, who played the beloved Mr. Hooper, Sesame Street was left with the dilemma of what to do with the character. After extensive talking with experts, it was decided to have Mr. Hooper die too, leading to a memorable, heartbreaking, yet beautiful scene in which the human adults of Sesame Street try to explain death to Big Bird.

Luis appears in the sequence, and though he has a smaller role than Bob, Gordon, or Maria, his character's very presence in the scene gives Emilio Delgado a place in Television history.

Luis the Family Man

When Sonia Manzano, the actress who played Maria, fell pregnant, Sesame Street's writers decided to use the happy news to incorporate a love story into the show, with a plan for Manzano's baby to eventually appear as Maria's child. While Maria was seen as romantically involved with David during the 70s, David's actor, Northern Calloway, was suffering from personal problems, so it was instead decided for Maria to marry Luis.

During Sesame Street's nineteenth season, Maria and Luis fall in love while caring for an orphaned kitten, and eventually marry. At the end of the following season, the couple welcomed a daughter, Gabi. After Gabi's birth, Luis joined Gordon in taking a more paternal role in the lives of Big Bird and the other child-aged Muppets. Luis, Maria, and Gabi were all praised by critics as a good example of a happy family unit, making them good role-models for Hispanic children.

Bring Back Luis!

By the 2010s, children's TV was changing, and Sesame Street had to change with it. Studies showed that children were less engaged when there were fewer Muppets onscreen, so in 2016, the majority of Sesame Street's human cast, including Emilio Delgado, were quietly dropped from the show. At the time of his dismissal, Delgado was believed to have remained in a single role longer than any other Mexican-American actor on Television.

Many older Sesame Street fans were upset to learn of the mass culling of the human cast, and campaigned heavily for their return. While the campaign was not successful, many of the actors, including Delgado and Bob McGrath, who played Bob the music teacher, thanked fans for their support. Delgado would return to play Luis one more time, in Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration in 2019, taking a part in a story in which characters past and present, human and Muppet, united to share memories as they searched for the missing Sesame Street sign.

Rest in Peace, Emilio Delgado. For generations of children, you will always be Luis.