¿Qué Pasa, USA? is America's first bilingual situation comedy, and the first sitcom to be produced for PBS. It was produced and taped from 1977 to 1980 in front of a live studio audience at PBS member station WPBT in Miami, Florida and aired on PBS member stations nationwide. The program explored the trials and tribulations faced by the Peñas, a Cuban-American family living in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, as they struggled to cope with a new country and a new language. The series is praised as being very true-to-life and accurately, if humorously, portraying the life and culture of Miami's Cuban-American population. Today, the show is cherished by many Miamians as a true, albeit humorous, representation of life and culture in Miami.

Synopsis

The series focused on the identity crisis of the members of the family as they were pulled in one direction by their elders—who wanted to maintain Cuban values and traditions—and pulled in other directions by the pressures of living in a predominantly Anglo-American society. This caused many misadventures for the entire Peña family as they get pulled in all directions in their attempt to preserve their heritage.

Use of language

The series was bilingual, reflecting the code-switching from Spanish use in the home and English at the supermarket ("Spanglish") predominant in Cuban-American households in the generation following the Cuban exodus of the 1960s. The use of language in the show paralleled the generational differences in many Cuban-American families of the era. The grandparents spoke almost exclusively Spanish and were reluctant—at times, even hostile—toward the idea of learning English; an episode featured a dream sequence where Joe, the son of the family, dreams about his grandparents exclusively speaking English (while Joe and Carmen could only speak Spanish). The grandparents' struggle with English often resulted in humorous misunderstandings and malapropisms. The parents' relative fluency in English was laced with strong Cuban accents and alternated between the two languages depending on the situation. The children, having been exposed to American culture for years, spoke primarily in slightly accented colloquial English, but were able to converse relatively competently in Spanish as needed (such as when speaking to their grandparents); however, one of the running gags of the show revolved around their occasional butchering of Spanish grammar or vocabulary.

Cast

Main characters

Recurring characters

Guest stars

Writers

Directors

Broadcast history

The series initially ran for four seasons from 1977 to 1980 (39 episodes were produced) and continues to run in syndication.