Remembering Manolo Villaverde of ¿Qué Pasa, USA? and His Role in Building Latino Representation on U.S. Screens

Manolo Villaverde died on Saturday, January 10, closing the life of an actor whose face became inseparable from the earliest years of Latino television in the United States and whose work helped shape how immigrant families recognized themselves on screen. His passing was confirmed through the official Facebook page dedicated to ¿Qué pasa USA?, the pioneering bilingual series where he portrayed Pepe Peña, the Cuban father who anchored a household navigating exile, language, and reinvention in Miami.

The post described Villaverde as a figure who felt less like a character and more like a familiar presence inside Latino homes, a man whose humor and discipline carried the authority of a parent who had crossed borders and learned how to begin again. Images of the actor, his castmates, and scenes from the series accompanied the message, prompting an outpouring of tributes from viewers who grew up with the show during its original run between 1977 and 1980 and its later rebroadcast in the 1990s.

Villaverde was 91.

The Importance of ‘¿Qué pasa USA?’

¿Qué pasa USA? holds a singular place in media history as the first bilingual television series produced in the United States, a quiet revolution at a time when the Spanish-language was rarely heard on mainstream screens except as a stereotype or a punchline. Villaverde’s Pepe Peña spoke in the hybrid language of exile, moving between Spanish and English in ways that mirrored how families spoke at dinner tables, in grocery stores, and on front porches across South Florida.

The success of the series brought Villaverde an Emmy Award in 1978, shared with co-stars Ana Margarita Martínez Casado and Luis Oquendo, recognition that arrived at a moment when Latino performers were seldom acknowledged by institutions that shaped U.S. entertainment. He often credited the show’s popularity to its closeness to everyday life, to its refusal to soften the contradictions of immigrant families trying to raise children between cultures.

After the series ended, Villaverde continued working steadily, portraying an airline executive in the crime drama Wiseguy and later appearing as the grandfather in the Nickelodeon children’s program Gullah Gullah Island, extending his screen presence across generations who encountered him first as a sitcom father and later as a gentle elder.

A Life Shaped by Exile and Reinvention

Manolo Villaverde was born on August 11, 1934, in Cuba and traveled to the United States as a young man, where he studied accounting in New York before enlisting in the US Navy in 1958. His early plans pointed toward stability rather than art, yet the theater soon pulled him back. He returned to Cuba and built a career in television and stage performance until political repression altered his path.

He was arrested after distributing material critical of the newly installed Castro government, an experience that forced him into exile. Mexico became his temporary refuge, followed by the United States, where he rebuilt his life and career with the quiet persistence shared by many artists who carried their craft across borders.

Colleagues often spoke of his discipline, shaped by military service and sharpened by displacement, qualities that translated into performances grounded in restraint and dignity rather than spectacle. Alongside acting, he maintained a devotion to painting, treating visual art as a private language when words felt insufficient.

A Pioneer for a Bilingual Generation

Villaverde’s importance reached further than his résumé. His career unfolded during a period when Latino stories were rarely allowed complexity on television in the U.S., when accents were liabilities and Spanish signaled marginality. ¿Qué pasa USA? disrupted that order by placing a Cuban family at the center of its narrative and allowing their language to exist without apology.

For first and second generation Latinos, especially those navigating life between English at school and Spanish at home, Pepe Peña offered a rare form of recognition. He represented parents who worked long hours, argued in two languages, held traditions close, and raised children who belonged to two worlds without fully surrendering either.

That visibility mattered. It validated the Spanglish speaking reality of communities who were building lives in the United States while refusing to erase their origins. Villaverde helped transform bilingualism from a private habit into a public identity, one that later generations of Latino performers would inherit and expand.

An Absence Felt Across Generations

Villaverde’s death comes at a time when Latino representation stands on far firmer ground than it once did, yet still carries the imprint of artists who worked when space was scarce and expectations were narrow. His career belongs to an era before streaming platforms and corporate diversity campaigns, when visibility depended on stubborn resolve, long auditions, and the rare moment when timing and opportunity finally aligned.

Many viewers still associate his face with evenings spent around a television set, listening to Spanish move freely through American living rooms without apology or translation. That familiarity became its own form of legacy, rooted in the idea that a Cuban father navigating life with his children in two languages could exist naturally within the country’s cultural landscape.

Manolo Villaverde leaves behind work shaped by exile and steady resolve, guided by the belief that ordinary families carry stories worthy of being told. Across generations, Pepe Peña remains a figure who taught audiences what belonging could sound like when it was spoken honestly.