by Michelle Willson, Editor-in-Chief
“One day At a Time” is a Netflix comedy drama inspired by a 1975 series of the same name.
It follows a Cuban American family as they navigate through life.
A single mom, two kids, and their grandma live in one apartment with their apartment manager, Schneider, who looks at them like a family.
My absolute favorite thing about this series is how it acknowledges some tough subjects like alcohol abuse, anxiety, depression, drugs and how these affect not just the person, but also the family dynamic.
The mom, Penelope Alvarez, is a single parent. She is also a veteran who goes through a lot, including PTSD, anxiety and depression. The series not only shows what it’s like to go through these situations, but it also shows how it affects the rest of the family, which I think added an extra aspect to the show.
The two kids are Elena and Alex. Elena is a white-passing gay woman who also struggles with anxiety. You get to see how she struggles coming out to her family. You also see how she copes with her dad not accepting her and leaving her quinceanera early before she can get the father-daughter dance.
Alex gets caught with drugs, and he faces a lot of peer pressure from his friends. You also get a glimpse into the struggle he faces, and you get to see how the fight between Elena and her father hurts the relationship between Alex and their father.
The grandma’s name is Lydia. She fled Cuba and still holds a lot of her Cuban tradition. Speaking little English, she talks about her journey from Cuba and how different it is in America, and about the loss of her husband.
The show also shows the racism the family gets for being Cuban Americans. It makes the whole family a little shook up, but also helps them realize that they shouldn’t not be themselves because of mean people out there.
Schneider, their landlord, is of Canadian descent. He struggles with alcohol and drug abuse. He latches onto the family as his one constant in life.
All in all, I give the show five out of five stars. Not only is it able to show some hard conversations without sugarcoating them, it also sheds a light on what other people go through.
This is an extremely good series, and I honestly would hope everyone watches it.