About Saludos
Beyond the Episodes
Meet the People and Discover the Stories Behind Saludos
Who were the actors who brought Mina and Mr. Wiggins to life? Who created the lovable puppets Pete and Repeat? And how did a public school district in South Florida come to produce a Spanish-language educational television series that would eventually reach classrooms across the country?
Behind the familiar characters, cheerful songs, and everyday adventures of Saludos lies a fascinating story of educational innovation, creativity, and a commitment to introducing young children to Spanish language and Hispanic culture.
Join us as we explore the people, places, and stories that brought Saludos to life.
How Saludos Began
Saludos originated in Florida as an innovative educational television project developed by the Foreign Language Department and District Television Department of Broward County Public Schools.
Under the leadership of project director Vilma T. Díaz, the program combined the expertise of Spanish-language educators with television production techniques to create entertaining and effective lessons for elementary school students.
The resulting series consisted of 36 fifteen-minute episodes, featuring live-action characters, puppets, music, and familiar everyday situations.
Initially introduced in six elementary schools, the program expanded considerably. By the 1989–1990 school year, Saludos was reaching more than 13,000 students in 21 Broward County elementary schools.
What began as a modest educational experiment in Broward County, Florida, eventually reached thousands of elementary school children.
The Saludos program was initially introduced in six elementary schools. Following its early implementation, the school district expanded the program in stages, eventually reaching 21 schools.
By the 1989–1990 school year, 13,329 students in kindergarten through fifth grade were participating.
But the educators behind Saludos wanted to know more than simply how many children were watching. They wanted to determine whether students were actually learning Spanish.
An extensive evaluation examined the performance of 8,935 students who completed language assessments. Researchers also surveyed parents, teachers, and students about their experiences.
The findings were encouraging. Students with longer exposure to the program generally demonstrated greater improvements in Spanish proficiency.
The surveys also revealed positive attitudes toward language learning. More than 80% of participating students reported that Spanish classes helped them with other school activities, their self-confidence, and their relationships with others.
Perhaps most remarkably, more than 90% indicated that learning Spanish did not interfere with their other schoolwork and that they wanted to continue studying the language.
These findings were documented in a 1992 article published in Hispania, the professional journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
For a television program developed by a public school district, Saludos had become a significant educational undertaking.
Goals of the Saludos Series
The primary goal of Saludos was to introduce elementary school children to basic Spanish while encouraging positive attitudes toward learning another language.
The program emphasized everyday vocabulary, pronunciation, listening comprehension, and oral communication. Additional objectives included recognizing Spanish word patterns, developing simple reading and writing skills, and introducing children to Hispanic customs and traditions.
Equally important, the creators wanted students to develop an appreciation for other cultures and an enthusiasm for continuing their language studies.
The Characters and the Teaching Approach
When digitally archiving and preserving these rare language telecourses, tracking down their exact production history is often the hardest part. Information about the show’s cast is scarce.
Unfortunately, the real-world identities of the actress who played Mina, the puppeteers behind Mr. Wiggins, Pete, and Repeat, and the others who appear in the series are lost to time. They do not appear in any surviving GPN catalogs, television databases, or online records, leaving the talented cast of this series entirely uncredited.
We would love to obtain and incorporate information about the cast, production crew, original teaching materials, photographs, or other surviving historical records here on our site. We’d love to hear from you! Contact us at swfloridaspanish@gmail.com.
Main Characters
Much of the series revolves around Mina and Mr. Wiggins, the neighborhood shopkeeper.
Their interactions provide opportunities to introduce Spanish vocabulary through familiar situations, including shopping, family activities, greetings, food, clothing, and everyday conversations.
Rather than presenting language lessons as formal classroom instruction, the characters make Spanish part of an entertaining story.
Mina
The live-action Spanish-speaking adult who anchors the show. Set in a Philadelphia neighborhood, she spends the series helping a local shopkeeper learn Spanish so he can better communicate with his customers.
Mr. Wiggins
The shopkeeper Mina helps. He is entirely a puppet character interacting in a world of live-action humans.
Pete and Repeat
Two of the series’ most memorable characters are the puppets Pete and Repeat.
Their playful repetition helps reinforce vocabulary and pronunciation while giving children opportunities to recognize and practice expressions introduced earlier in the lessons.
Other Characters
In addition to Mina, the next most frequent appearing and popular character is Gina, the singer/guitarist. There is also a second puppet character – Señor Perrito. Other regularly appearing characters include Nancy, Rosita, Eduardo, and Cristina.
The educational philosophy behind Saludos was straightforward: young children could begin learning a foreign language through enjoyable, carefully structured experiences.
Each fifteen-minute program introduced a relatively small amount of new vocabulary and grammatical structure.
The series sought to:
Develop a positive attitude toward learning another language.
Introduce practical Spanish expressions.
Model correct pronunciation.
Encourage listening and oral communication.
Familiarize children with Hispanic cultures and traditions.
Its creators also recognized that classroom teachers might not have extensive backgrounds in Spanish.
For that reason, Saludos was supported by an unusually comprehensive collection of instructional materials.
🎨 A Television Series Created by Educators
Saludos was part of Broward County’s effort to expand opportunities for elementary school students to learn Spanish.
The school district combined the expertise of foreign-language teachers with the capabilities of its educational-television department.
The result was a program designed specifically for classroom use, with entertaining characters, music, and visual demonstrations supporting the lessons.
The original Saludos program included much more than the television episodes.
Historical educational catalogs describe three teacher’s guides and seven accompanying audiotapes.
The guides included lesson plans, vocabulary activities, song lyrics, recipes, student worksheets, and other materials designed to help teachers reinforce the television lessons.
We are investigating whether copies of these original materials have survived and might eventually be made available to today’s educators and language learners.
Although the program originated in Broward County, it eventually reached classrooms in other parts of the United States.
Research documents indicate that schools in Mesa, Arizona, began using Saludos in 1988.
The program also appeared in instructional-television catalogs years after its initial development, demonstrating the enduring value of its approach to beginning Spanish instruction.
Interesting Tidbits
Saludos was a Florida production. The television series originated within Broward County Public Schools rather than at a major commercial television studio. It was developed by Broward’s Foreign Language Department and the District Television Department and was likely paid for with Title I funds.
Each episode lasted approximately fifteen minutes. This made the lessons practical for use during regular elementary school schedules.
There were 36 episodes. The series covered subjects ranging from greetings and numbers to shopping, weather, animals, food, and family activities.
The original teacher’s guides were extensive. Historical catalogs list three volumes containing hundreds of pages of instructional materials.
The series was still being distributed years later. Educational-television catalogs from the 2000s continued to list Saludos for classroom use. It was originally distributed by Great Plains National Television (GPN).
The creators published research about the program. In 1992, three educators associated with Saludos described their innovative approach in the professional journal Hispania.
Our research has uncovered some intriguing questions:
- Who were the actors who portrayed Mina and Mr. Wiggins?
- Who performed the voices and movements of Pete and Repeat?
- Who wrote the scripts and composed the songs?
- What became of the original production team?
- Have the original teacher’s guides, audiotapes, photographs, and other historical materials survived?
Explore More
We continue to search for other articles, interviews, teaching resources, and videos related to Saludos.
In the meantime, you can explore:
- ¡Saludos! An Innovative Program Developed by Broward County Public Schools in Florida — Hispania, March 1992.
- Saludos: Beginning Spanish — an original educational-resource catalog listing the program’s director, episodes, and teaching materials.
- Historical instructional-television catalogs describing the series and its classroom applications.
Share Your Memories
Did you watch Saludos when it originally aired?
Were you a student or teacher who used the series? Perhaps you were involved in its production, or know someone who appeared in it.
We would especially appreciate information about the cast, production crew, original teaching materials, photographs, or other surviving historical records.
We’d love to hear from you! Contact us at swfloridaspanish@gmail.com.
Language Classics is working to preserve not only classic educational television programs but also the stories of the people who created them.