‘Club Mundo Kids’ Is a New Children’s Show Aimed At First and Second Generation Latino Children
Screenshot via YouTube
It’s no secret that there’s a shortage of programming out there for Latino children. Latino children are expected to consume children’s programming that features mostly white protagonists and simply put up with it. And when it comes to bilingual programming? Forget it. But a new show called “Club Mundo Kids” is trying to change all that.
“Club Mundo Kids” is a bilingual, educational program aimed at children of first and second generation Latino children.
The new show, hosted by former ABC News correspondent, Romi Puga, is aimed at the underserved audience of American Latino children who speak Spanish as their first language. However, “Club Mundo” also smatters in some English words here and there as part of their programming.
“There is very little content being created that is speaking to U.S. Hispanic, Latinx children and telling their stories,” Romi Puga recently told The New York Times. “The younger generation doesn’t really have anyone breaking things down and talking directly to them in a way that is digestible.”
Unlike “Dora the Explorer” or “Elena of Avalor“, “Club Mundo Kids” aims to talk to children about Latino life in a real world context.
While “Dora the Explorer” and “Elena of Avalor” are invaluable for showing Latino kids versions of themselves on screen, they function more as escapist entertainment. “Club Mundo Kids”, however,” features real-world Latinos in front of the camera–as well as a few Latino puppets.
Romi Puga hosts “Club Mundo Kids” from her backyard along with her “neighbors”, a friendly pink puppet named Maya and Coco, an adventurous puppet shaped like a coconut.
Together, Romi and her friends educate their young audience on important, real-world topics, like space exploration, recycling, and the Endangered Species Act.
They also discuss topics directly related to Latindad, like why different Latin American countries use different words and have different accents.
“We do a lot of that,” Romi told NBC News. “Just opening their minds to, ‘Hey, my classmate speaks Spanish but his Spanish doesn’t sound like mine. Why is that?’ And so we’re explaining that but in a fun way, and our hope is to encourage empathy, curiosity and that feeling of identifying with this show, which embraces multicultural identities.”
Above all, the creators of “Club Mundo Kids” hope that the show will create a space for American Latino children who feel like they don’t completely belong in either culture.
Since 2018, more than 1 in 4 newborns in the U.S. are Latino. These children have a complicated, multicultural identity that is being overlooked by the mainstream media. Romi, who was born in Miami but has parent from Chile and Argentina, understands this conflict firsthand.
“To me, that’s what I want ‘Club Mundos Kids’ to be — that group for kids, a place to identify, where they don’t need to pick one or the other,” she told NBC News. “They don’t need to pick English or Spanish but they can celebrate and be proud of their multicultural identities.”
“Club Mundo Kids” is currently airing on both Televisa and Universo.
