Joshua Dela Cruz also offers parents advice on how to discuss these challenging times with their children
Joshua Dela Cruz is the first Asian American Pacific Islander to host a major children’s show — Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues & You!
Singing and dancing with an animated dog isn’t a stretch for the 32-year-old actor, who studied theater and appeared in Aladdin on Broadway (as well as being a real-life dog dad).
But like many AAPI performers, Dela Cruz downplayed his Filipino heritage for years just to land roles.
“When I graduated college, all I wanted to be was ethnically ambiguous so that I could work,” Dela Cruz told TheWrap’s Lawrence Yee. “I would walk into auditions and say to myself, ‘Please don’t see me as Asian, please don’t see me as Asian.’ Because I knew that there were only like five shows that were for people like me on Broadway, and which were written by white men. And I knew that if it weren’t those shows, I don’t have a great chance.”
It wasn’t until he got involved in the Asian theater community that he began to change his thinking about himself and, more importantly, how he represented himself. After joining Here Lies Love — the story about former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos — at the Public Theater and working with other Filipino actors did the actor have a breakthrough.
“[The Asian theater community] are actors that were not ashamed of who they were. And that’s when I realized, ‘Oh, I have been ignoring and suppressing who I am in order to fit into this world.’ That is the status quo,” Dela Cruz admitted. “As an actor, you’re supposed to be emotionally available. You’re supposed to be as honest as possible in the moment. And how could I be emotionally available and as honest as possible if I was telling myself, ‘Don’t see me as Asian, just be ethnically ambiguous?'”
“Then going into Aladdin and being in a diverse cast that was unapologetically Black, Latin, and Asian and everything that I realized, ‘Josh, you look the way that you look You are Asian. You are Filipino American.’ That was a huge moment in my life because then things really began to unfold,” he added. “I realized the power in identity, and celebrating who you are, and what that is, and how that can unlock a greater power.”
The turning point came when he landed the lead in Nickelodeon’s 2018 Blue’s Clues revival. In the debut episode, “Meet Josh,” Dela Cruz is introduced as the cousin of former hosts Steve and Joe, played by white actors Steve Burns and Donovan Patton, respectively (Burns actively participated in finding a host among thousands of hopefuls).
Dela Cruz credits both the change in his personal perspective and the colorblind casting process to landing this role.
“I never saw myself as a TV actor,” Dela Cruz recalled. “Even when I went into school, I was like, ‘I’m going to study theater, I’m going to be in musicals.’ Why? Because I knew about Lea Salonga. I knew about BD Wong, I knew about Lou Diamond Phillips. I didn’t see that on TV. I never saw things people that I identified with that weren’t a foreigner or a villain.”
“As I started to figure out who I am as an Asian actor, I started realizing that the box [media] created is screwed up. So why am I going to try to fit into that box? I should just be myself and pursue film and television, right?”
“The opportunity to become the host of Blue’s Clues & You! was something that I never saw in a million years because it’s such an influential, huge show,” he added. “I used to watch the show with my little sister, I remember sitting on my aunt’s pink rug, watching every morning and playing along with her. It’s such a huge show that I never thought that I would ever be in this position. But then to do so as an Asian man is incredible. Because I didn’t see that on TV.”
The unfettered way his character was brought in, the introduction of his grandma or lola (veteran Filipina actress Carolyn Fe) and the support of the production have encouraged him further.
But Dela Cruz also recognizes that his audience — young kids — are lacking encouragement and going through unprecedented times with the coronavirus pandemic and movements in support of Black lives and against Asian hate.
“Racism is such a difficult conversation but such an important conversation to have. I think there was a study where kids at the age of 4 and 5 start to have biases. And then on the other side of that, they also feel discrimination for the way that they look,” he explained.
“As much as we would like to think that we are filtering that what our kids see there, it’s so easy to walk in on a conversation or seeing something on the news or a phone or on an iPad. That’s unavoidable. Somebody is going to be talking about it. And I think one of the best things that you can do is look at your own biases, look at your own actions, because there are a lot of things that we do and say that, at the surface seem harmless.”
Watch more of TheWrap’s interview with Dela Cruz in the video below. The series recently wrapped its third season, and a fourth season is in development.
Season 2 of Blue’s Clues & You is airing on Nick Jr. and streaming online at nickjr.com.
The original Blue's Clues series and its spin-off Blue's Room are available to stream on Paramount+ and Noggin.
From Rappler:
'Blue's Clues' host Josh dela Cruz on Filipino identity, representation
We talk to the 'Blue's Clues' host about featuring Filipino culture on the show
It’s been over two years since Joshua dela Cruz was announced as the host of the reboot of the iconic children's show Blue’s Clues. And yet for Josh, who premiered as host in 2019, every day on set is a “pinch me” moment.
“I remember drawing a paper cup and then on set, 20 some odd years later, the first clue that I’m drawing is a cup. That’s wild to me, because I never saw that for myself,” Josh, who studied theater and dance, said in an interview with Rappler.
“I never saw myself on television. Growing up, we were the foreigner, the villain, the joke. To be in this capacity…these are things I feel so lucky that I get to share that with kids – that you can be comfortable with your feelings, you can ask for help,” the Filipino-American actor added.
In Blue’s Clues, Josh goes on an adventure with young viewers to figure out a mystery through clues that Blue, a puppy, leaves around for them to find. In the course of the episode, kids learn a handful of new things – from math and logic to color. But in one of the reboot’s more historic episodes, Josh bakes bibingka (a Filipino baked rice cake) and introduces viewers to his lola (grandmother in Filipino).
“The fact that now we’re working lola now into the English lexicon…and now kids know that lola means grandma. We get to share that, and be proud, and share our culture. It’s such an amazing thing because I didn’t see that growing up,” he said.
The episode, which aired in the US in 2020, is set to premiere in the Philippines on Nickelodeon on May 14.
Sharing his own Filipino heritage on the show and on Nickelodeon is only part of a bigger journey for Josh – to explore his roots even further and to find his voice in the Asian-American community.
While racism has always been an issue in the US, things came to a head in 2020. Incidents of violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders or AAPI have surged since the start of the pandemic.
“It falls on your responsibility to have a point of view, to learn why this is important, why is this not just something that happened in 2020, why is this something that has been happening,” said the actor, who’s lent his voice several times to advocate against and raise awareness of AAPI hate.
For Josh, bagging the plum role as Blue’s buddy sends a message to young children who might look like him. Representation, he said, “means anything is possible.”
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Originally published: Tuesday, April 27, 2021.
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