Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish, also known simply as Destinos, is an educational television program created by Bill VanPatten, who was, at the time, Professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. The show, designed to introduce viewers to the basics of Spanish, had two seasons, beginning in 1992. Its 52 episodes are often used for educational purposes in schools and are still broadcast regularly on many PBS stations.

Destinos was produced by WGBH Boston and funded by the Annenberg/CPB Project, with additional funding by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

Format

Destinos uses the telenovela (Spanish soap opera) format to teach Spanish-language speaking, listening, and comprehension skills. Early episodes have English-language narration in addition to the Spanish-language dialogue, but the English language content decreases continually, eventually disappearing entirely. At the end of most episodes, the lead character, Mexican-American lawyer Raquel Rodríguez (Liliana Abud), addresses the viewer to ask a number of questions to verify the viewer's comprehension of the action. The viewer is introduced to various accents and dialects and the cultures of various Spanish-speaking countries.

The series consists of 52 videos that cover virtually the entire scope of Spanish grammar, including verb tenses of present, future (including future of uncertainty), imperfect, preterite, perfect, pluperfect, participles, and the present, imperfect, and perfect forms of the subjunctive. It also covers a variety of country-specific usages: for example, it uses both the verb extrañar (to miss somebody or something) and the phrase echar de menos (which means the same thing). After the early episodes, conversation is done at more or less normal speaking speed, improving the student's comprehension. Spanish subtitles are included on both VHS and DVD versions — translations are not provided.

There is an accompanying set of materials that are available to complement the series. These include a set of audio tapes and textbook, the latter of which follows the series episode-for-episode but provides a more systematic presentation such as would be used in a classroom course.

Destinos is also characterized by frequent reviews of preceding episodes. This characteristic has led many people to criticize the series for being overly long and boring, but there is a purpose to the reviews: it provides extensive repetition, which helps many people learn the material. It also gives many people a sense of achievement when they realize they can understand the earlier episodes that seemed difficult at the time.

Main characters

• Fernando Castillo Saavedra (Augusto Benedico) — The patriarch of the Castillo family, born in Spain but lives in Mexico throughout the series. Don Fernando initiates an investigation after receiving a letter from an acquaintance of his first wife, an acquaintance he had long thought to have been killed in the Spanish Civil War. His first wife was Rosario del Valle de Iglesias, with whom he had Ángel Castillo del Valle. His second wife was Carmen Márquez de Castillo, and they had Ramón, Carlos, Juan, and Mercedes.
• Raquel Rodríguez Orozco (Liliana Abud) — Born and lives in the Los Angeles area though she has family members in Mexico and has visited frequently. She is a lawyer contracted by the Castillo-Saavedra Family to conduct the investigation. Her research leads across Spain and Latin America in a search to find the truth of don Fernando's first wife.
• Arturo Iglesias del Valle (Arturo Puig) — Born and lives in the area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a psychiatrist, the second son of Rosario (by Martín Iglesias) and half-brother to Ángel. He also ends up falling in love with Raquel and accompanies her on part of her journey.
• Ángel Castillo del Valle — Born in Seville, Spain and lived and died in San Juan. The only son of don Fernando and Rosario, he becomes the focus of Raquel's investigation. He was a sailor for a short (and unsuccessful) period of time, and became a painter after traveling around Europe for a time. Angel is never actually seen during the series, though pictures of him as a young man and taken several years before he died are seen.
• Angela Castillo Soto (Yasmín Pereira) — Lives in San Juan. Only daughter of Ángel; a computer programmer by profession. Attended the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico in San Germán. Lives in the apartment owned by her late father Angel. She is rather flighty.
• Roberto Castillo Soto (Edwin Francisco) — Grew up in San Juan but lives at an unnamed small town in Mexico, where he is taking part in an archeological dig. Roberto is an archeology student and is the last major character introduced in the series.
• Rosario

Plot

Summary

Destinos recounts the story of Los Angeles-based lawyer Raquel Rodríguez who is hired by the family of Fernando Castillo (Augusto Benedico). He had discovered that his first wife, Rosario, did not die in the Spanish Civil War as he had believed, but had survived and had an unknown child. To investigate the case, Raquel travels to a number of Spanish-speaking areas — Seville and Madrid, Spain; Buenos Aires, Argentina; San Juan and San Germán, Puerto Rico; and Mexico — has a number of adventures and mishaps, meets a love interest (Arturo Puig) and faces a number of melodramatic conflicts.

Recurring plot elements include letters (primarily to determine last know addresses of people and continue Raquel's travels), comic mix-ups, and people dying (although nobody actually dies during the series, many characters either died previously or were about to die, most notably Don Fernando himself).

Details

The Beginning: In Seville, Don Fernando has been keeping a letter written to him by Teresa Suárez secret for some time. His medical problems (which are unspecified) are increasing, however, and he starts seeing hallucinations of his first wife, Rosario, whom he thought died during the Spanish Civil War. He finally decides to act on the contents of the letter. The letter tells him that Rosario did not die during the war. He explains to his entire family that he wants to find out what happened to Rosario, including whether she had any children with him. His brother Pedro hires Raquel, a lawyer of his acquaintance, to investigate.

Spain Arc: Raquel first travels to Sevilla, Spain, from which Sra. Suárez's letter was addressed. She meets family members and soon learns from them that Sra. Suárez has since moved to Madrid. She travels to Madrid and learns from Sra. Suárez that Rosario has moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sra. Suárez gives her a letter with Rosario's last known address. She also learns that Rosario and Fernando have a son, named Angel, whom Fernando has not met. While in Madrid, there is a comic mix-up of identities and rooms. Sra. Suárez's last words to Raquel prove prophetic: "Life is not all work: you also need to dedicate some time to your heart!"

Argentina/Arturo Arc: Raquel then travels to Argentina to search for Rosario. When she finds that Rosario no longer lives at the address on the letter Sra. Suárez gave her (the Estancia Santa Susana, which is a real tourist ranch near Buenos Aires), following a lead from a local gaucho she happens upon the house of Arturo Iglesias, who she soon finds out is Angel's half-brother. Arturo and Raquel search for acquaintances of Angel, armed only with a 20-year old picture. In the Italian section of Buenos Aires called La Boca they finally find an old sailor named Héctor Condotti who immediately remembers Angel and after several days (allowing for an attraction to develop between Raquel and Arturo) produces a letter with Angel's address in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico Arc: Raquel then flies to San Juan and finds the address, which is located in Old San Juan. Unfortunately, Angel died only a few years ago. Visiting his grave, Raquel meets Angel's daughter, Angela. Raquel tells Angela the whole story, including that she has a grandfather in Mexico and Uncle in Argentina she's never heard of. Raquel also finds out that Angela has a brother, Roberto, who is conveniently living in Mexico. Angela runs into problems with one of her aunts allowing her to travel to Mexico with Raquel, but after a trip to see her grandmother in San Germán, her grandmother gives her blessing to let her travel. Along the way, they have car trouble in the area of Ponce.

Finally, in Mexico, we meet Angela's boyfriend, the nauseating mujeriego ("womanizer") Jorge. He makes several clumsy passes at Raquel. A fight between Raquel and Angela ensues, not because Raquel tells Angela about his passes (she almost does, but does not), but because Angela thinks the world of him and wants to give him a significant amount of money to start a theater. Nonetheless, Raquel and Angela are about to travel together to Mexico when they learn that Angela's brother Roberto has been trapped in an excavation in Mexico.

Mexico/Rescuing Roberto Arc: Raquel and Angela travel to Mexico, where they quickly drive to the little town where Roberto is trapped in a pre-Columbian excavation. Arturo was to meet them in Mexico City, but they cannot get in contact with him, so he spends several days in Mexico City wondering what happened to them. Several episodes (possibly the slowest in the series) pass where Raquel and Angela are waiting for Roberto to be rescued, and Arturo wonders what happened to Raquel. Finally, Roberto is rescued and Angela and Roberto meet their uncle Arturo.

Love Triangle Arc: When Raquel calls her mother back in Los Angeles to catch up, her mother hatches a scheme to get Raquel back together with Luis, an old boyfriend, who has recently called up Raquel's mother trying to get back into Raquel's mother's good graces and from there back into Raquel's life. Luis impressed her mother with his apparent maturity and wealth so she (despite her advice to Raquel not to get mixed up in other people's lives) invites Luis down to Mexico to try to get him and Raquel back together. Arturo and Luis meet, resulting in some back and forth between the two, but they generally get along well, leaving Raquel wondering what's happening.

Finally, Arturo meets Raquel's parents. Arturo finds Raquel's father being fond of him, but her mother clearly not. Raquel had by now figured out that her mother asked Luis to come down to Mexico, and a fight between the two ensues. Her mother finally admits that the only reason she's opposed to Arturo is that she's afraid that Raquel (their only daughter) will move to Argentina with Arturo. After Raquel assures her she will not leave her parents alone, her mother has a complete change of heart regarding Arturo. After Luis tries to get Raquel to go away for a romantic weekend together with him, she tells him that it's over between them, and Luis returns to the United States.

Family Problems Arc: Meanwhile, after Don Fernando is transported to Guadalajara to see a medical specialist, a financial irregularity comes to light where Don Fernando's son Carlos has been embezzling money from the family company in Miami. It turns out that his wife, Gloria, is a gambling addict and Carlos took the money to bail her out. The whole family company (which includes Don Fernando's ranch in Mexico) ends up being endangered. Because of this, they close the Miami office, and they consider selling the ranch. Another monetary difficulty arises, this time between Angela and Roberto, over the fact that she wants to give her part of the money from the sale of their father's home to her scummy boyfriend Jorge. Avuncular Arturo starts playing mediator and tries to talk them through the situation.

Doubts (Review Arc): Finally, they all meet Don Fernando. It is a happy meeting (though Fernando is obviously near death), but when Don Fernando suddenly walks in on their reunion dinner fully dressed and looking quite a bit stronger, they're all confused. To their amazement, Don Fernando tells them that he doubts their story: he does not believe that Arturo is really his half-nephew and Angela and Roberto are really his grandchildren. This device gives Raquel an opportunity to review the entire series, which takes four episodes.

At Long Last (Final Arc): At last, Don Fernando is convinced (though it was a wedding cup given to Angela by her grandmother that convinces him, not Raquel's recounting) and everybody is happy again. Another plot element is tied up when it turns out that Don Fernando has been squirreling away money all along, with the intention of turning the family ranch into an orphanage after his death. Carlos, conveniently, loves kids (having taken care of their kids while Gloria was out gambling), so they name Carlos the leader of the new orphanage.

Finale: To wrap up the series, Arturo decides to move to Los Angeles to be with Raquel, since he has no family and few friends in Argentina. He says he will have to improve his English, in the process saying the only English words spoken by a character in the series: "What seems the problem, Miss Jones?" They walk off into the sunset.

Trivia

• Augusto Benedico died before filming was finished; therefore the ending used previously shot footage of Don Fernando.
• Maricarmen, daughter of Ramón and granddaughter of Don Fernando, is the real-life daughter of Liliana Abud.
• Pati's assistant in the theater production in New York City is played by series creator VanPatten.
• Jorge Martínez de Hoyos was familiar to American viewers from his role as Mexican villager Hilario in the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven.

Nuevos Destinos

A follow-up story, Nuevos Destinos was produced by WGBH and McGraw-Hill for Annenberg in 1997. It revisits the Destinos story six years later as Raquel encounters a new family mystery. The episodes are only 15 minutes long in this sequel, and some major characters from the earlier series, such as Arturo, do not appear. Nuevos Destinos includes about three hours of video, with an accompanying immersive CD-ROM that allows the user to help Raquel discover what is going on.

Other versions

A French-language version of Destinos was produced as Destinos : Une introduction à l'espagnol, wherein the English-language narration was removed and replaced by French-language narration. This version was broadcast on Télé-Québec, in Quebec, Canada from 1997 to 2001.

Places featured

• Mexico
  • Mexico City
  • Guadalajara
• Spain
  • Sevilla
  • Madrid
• Argentina
  • Buenos Aires
    • La Boca
    • Recoleta
• Puerto Rico
  • San Juan
    • Viejo San Juan
  • Ponce
  • San Germán
    • Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico
• United States
  • Miami
  • New York City

Transportation

Much of the flying done by Raquel was aboard Iberia Airlines to and from Spain. The film incorrectly shows a Boeing 727 taking off for Madrid, which Iberia used but only on Intra-Spain/Intra-European and some Intra-Latin America routes because of its short range and inability to cross the Atlantic. She flies an Airbus A300 to Buenos Aires with a fuel stop in Brazil.

It is assumed other carriers were used when in Argentina and Puerto Rico, most likely Mexicana and Aerolineas Argentinas.

While in many of the cities Raquel takes advantages of local transportation including trains and taxis. She uses a RENFE train to reach Madrid from Seville. In Puerto Rico she travels the island by a Suzuki Sidekick.

See also

• Connect With English
• French in Action
• Fokus Deutsch

External links

• Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish information at Annenberg, including Video on Demand for the series
• Destinos Episode Summaries
• Estancia Santa Susana