Everyone has their Netflix series that they can watch all over again and still love it no matter what. Had you asked me which Netflix series I would watch all over again a month ago, I would have said One Tree Hill and end of discussion.
But, after binge watching One Day at a Time on Netflix, this show is my new answer to that question and here’s why.
Growing up as a second-generation immigrant whose parents are both from El Salvador, I can relate completely with what the show is about and what it represents. This show is different than the tv shows I used to watch as a kid.
When I was younger, I’d watch shows like Full House, Even Stevens, and Drake & Josh, and although those made me laugh time after time, I felt like I could never truly relate to the family dynamics of these shows, unlike One Day at a Time. One Day at a Time is a show centered around a Cuban-American family living in Los Angeles. It focuses on Penelope Alvarez, a veteran single mom dealing with PTSD along with her two kids, Elena, who is dealing with her sexuality and coming out to her family and Alex, who struggles with being the only man in the house with the absence of his father, and Penelope’s Cuban mother, Lydia Alvarez, who is still coming to terms with being a widow in America.
This series has touched and expressed many issues that need to be addressed in the real world and it does a great job in putting both sides of the issue into perspective. Here are some of the issues that they discuss in the show.
1. Being a Single Mother
Penelope is a single mother who is juggling the responsibilities of being a nurse, a mother of two, and taking care of her own mother as well. In the first episode of the series, she mentions that she wanted her daughter to have a quinceañera to show people that she was a strong single mother that didn’t need a husband or a man in her life. There was so much pressure on her to be very successful to prove everyone who doubted her wrong. This show does a phenomenal job on showing the reality of being a single mother and how amazing moms are in general.
2. Depression and Anxiety
Being a veteran, Penelope suffers from depression and PTSD. Throughout the series, she hides the fact that she is going to group therapy and taking anti-depressants, because she is worried that her mom is going to label her as a “loca” or “junkie”. In the second season, there is an episode that highlights Penelope’s progress with therapy but when she decides to go off her meds, her life turns into a downward spiral (I don’t know how many times I have cried in this episode). Seeing this from Penelope’s perspective shines a big light on those who have depression and PTSD, something everyone needs to know.
3. The Gender Binary
In this episode of the series, Penelope tries to announce an idea she had to improve things in her workplace but her male co-worker, Scott, steals her idea and takes credit for it. It touches the issue on gender pay where Scott is making $30 an hour, more than she gets paid when she has been working longer than he has. This episode explains the term “mansplaining”, where a man explains something to a woman in a manner that seems condescending. Although it is a serious issue, the series discusses the issue in a comical way while bringing awareness to the gender pay gap.
4. The LGBT Community
(Spoiler Alert) During the first season, Elena, Penelope’s daughter is dealing with the issue of telling her family she is gay. With her coming out to her family, we see how easily her brother came to terms with her sexuality and we also see the way it impacts her mother and grandmother who struggle at the beginning to accept her sexuality. The audience sees both perspectives of Elena coming out and when her family accepts her sexuality because they come to realize that she is still the same person she was before, and her sexuality shouldn’t make them love her any less. During the last episode of the season, we see Elena’s father struggle with her sexuality and ends up abandoning her at her own quinceañera right before the father-daughter dance (another emotional episode that made me go through a box of tissues).
5. Immigration and Discrimination
Of course, being a Cuban family living in Los Angeles, there were times where the family ran into issues with immigration and discrimination of Hispanics. (Sorry, but another spoiler alert) The first character to be impacted directly by racial comments was Penelope’s son, Alex, when his friends began to chant “Build that Wall” a reference to President Trump. It shines a light on the effect of a child when their parents get deported when Elena’s best friend, Carmen, is secretly living at the Alvarez’s house because both her parents were deported and sent back to Mexico.