Zaldívar was hired by the local affiliate of B.F. Goodrich, a position that lasted until 1961 when his personal disagreements with the direction of the government of Fidel Castro led him to emigrate to the United States, where he found an accounting job with Diners Club in New York City and worked his way up to become an executive there.
He decided to go off on his own and created Repertorio Español in 1968 together with René Buch, a Cuban emigre who was an art critic who had attended Yale Drama School.
With the rise of the Hispanic population in New York City, Zaldívar recognized an opportunity to involve the "hundreds of Spanish actors in New York working in restaurants and offices who are highly desirous of working again in the theater" with the hope of providing acting positions for the many "Spanish, Cuban and Puerto Rican actors who come here to find opportunities to perform".
Translations of English-language plays such as The Fantasticks and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, as well as novel adaptions of works from Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa were put on stage.
[2] A resident of Manhattan, Zaldívar died at his home there in the Gramercy neighborhood at age 75 on October 6, 2009, due to complications of dementia with Lewy bodies.