PBS prepares to launch bilingual show for kids

The show will feature a Latino family.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Kids say the darndest things. And these days, they're often saying them in Spanish.
Take, for example, "Maya & amp; Miguel," a show launching Monday on PBS stations. The show revolves around 10-year-old Latino twins Maya and Miguel, their parents, their grandmother and the family's bilingual pet parrot, Paco.
Some of the show's dialogue is delivered in Spanish, while some is in English.
"Maya & amp; Miguel" are not alone as characters aimed at children that speak multiple languages.
Indeed, the new show -- PBS has picked up 65 episodes -- is just the latest entry in a growing arena of bilingual entertainment aimed at some of the youngest viewers.
With a population of more than 35 million, Hispanic Americans are the largest minority group in the country. And to programmers, they're the future of television -- and an audience wide open to multilanguage fare.
Started with 'Dora'
The path for "Maya & amp; Miguel" to get on the air was set by Nickelodeon's "Dora the Explorer," the most successful bilingual children's show yet.
The series follows a bilingual Latina heroine who traipses about the jungles and rain forests spreading her message of multiculturalism.
It's the top-rated preschool show on television.
"Dora" has also launched a line of licensed products -- backpacks, dolls, clothes and DVDs -- that have generated $2.1 billion in retail sales this year alone.
"What we wanted to do with 'Dora,'" said Brown Johnson, executive vice president of Nick Jr., "was to make the ability to speak another language be something really magical. Because what we found in our research is that kids of bilingual families whose parents don't speak English ... are always in the position of translator, which is potentially embarrassing for the kids."
"Maya & amp; Miguel" also aims to remove the stigma that can sometimes be applied to non-English speakers.
Population shift
The show, said Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Entertainment, which produces "Maya & amp; Miguel" for PBS, "was born out of a need with a shift in the population in the United States, particularly with children. We really felt there was a special need to show a loving Latino family."
The ethnic diversity of children's television can also be a tool for change, according to Linda Ellerbee, who hosts a special edition of Nick News, "Mi America: A Celebration of Hispanic Culture," at 8:30 tonight on Nickelodeon.
"You have to be carefully taught to hate other people," said Ellerbee. "We're not born with any of this. It's acquired. And if it's acquired, it can be unacquired."