Shortly after the NFL’s announcement that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl halftime show, conservative media outlets and Trump administration officials went on the attack.
Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem promised that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be present at the Super Bowl. President Donald Trump called the selection “absolutely ridiculous.”
Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson regretted that the reggaeton singer did not have songs in English. Bad Bunny, according to conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, “is not an American artist.” Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito A. Martínez Ocasio, is a superstar, one of the artists with the largest streaming audience in the world. And, since he is Puerto Rican, he is also a US citizen.
Bad Bunny certainly ticks a lot of boxes that irritate conservatives: He endorsed Kamala Harris for president in 2024, there’s his gender-defying wardrobe, he harshly criticized the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, and he refused to tour in the US for fear that some of his fans will be persecuted and deported by ICE.
And its explicit lyrics, most in Spanish, would make even the most ardent defender of freedom of expression cringe.
However, as experts on issues of national identity and American immigration policies, we believe that Lahren and Johnson’s insults are the key to why the rapper generated so much controversy on the right.
The spectacle of a Spanish-speaking rapper performing during the most watched sporting event on American television represents a direct rejection of the Trump administration’s efforts to hide the country’s diversity.
The Puerto Rican colony in the US
Bad Bunny was born in 1994 in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated US territory that the country acquired after the Spanish-American War of 1898. It is home to 3.2 million US citizens by birth. If it were a state, it would be the 30th largest in terms of population, according to the 2020 US Census.
But Puerto Rico is not a state; it is a colony from a bygone era of American imperial expansion abroad. Puerto Ricans do not have voting representatives in Congress nor do they participate in the election of the president of the United States. They are also divided over the future of the island.
Large majorities seek American statehood or an improved version of the current commonwealth status, while a smaller minority aspires to independence. But one thing is clear for all Puerto Ricans: they come from a non-sovereign land, with a clearly defined Latin American culture, one of the oldest in the Americas.
Puerto Rico may belong to the United States—and many Puerto Ricans embrace that special relationship—but the island itself doesn’t sound or feel like the United States.
The more than 5.8 million Puerto Ricans who reside in the 50 states further complicate the picture. While they are legally U.S. citizens, most Americans don’t tend to see them that way. In fact, a 2017 survey revealed that only 54% of Americans knew that Puerto Ricans were American citizens.
Also read: Bad Bunny, ‘the one who doesn’t have songs in English’, provokes the ire of right-wing commentators
Puerto Ricans live in what we describe as the “paradox of the foreign citizen”: they are American citizens, but only those who reside on the continent enjoy all the rights of citizenship.
A recent Congressional report stated that US citizenship for Puerto Ricans “is not equal, permanent and irrevocable citizenship protected by the 14th Amendment (…) And Congress reserves the right to determine the disposition of the territory.” Any US citizen who moves to Puerto Rico no longer has all the rights of mainland US citizens.
The selection of Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl halftime show illustrates this paradox. In addition to criticism from public figures, there were widespread requests among MAGA influencers to deport the reggaeton artist.
This is just one of the ways Puerto Ricans, as well as other Latino citizens, are reminded of their “other” status.
ICE’s detentions of people who simply appear to be immigrants (a tactic that recently received approval from the Supreme Court) are an example of their alien status.
Most of the ICE raids occurred in predominantly Latino communities in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. This has forced many Latino communities to cancel Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations.
Bad Bunny’s global reach
The xenophobic fervor against Bad Bunny led political leaders, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, to call for a more Super Bowl-appropriate figure, such as country music artist Lee Greenwood. Referring to Bad Bunny, Johnson said, “It seems like he’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience.”
But the facts contradict that statement. The Puerto Rican artist tops the world music charts. He has more than 80 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has sold almost five times as many albums as Greenwood.
That global appeal has impressed the NFL, which hopes to host up to eight international games next season. Additionally, Latinos represent the league’s fastest-growing fan base, and Mexico is its largest international market, with 39.5 million followers.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl saga could become a major political moment. Conservatives, in their eagerness to highlight Bad Bunny’s “otherness”—despite the fact that the United States is the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world—may have unintentionally educated the country about the American citizenship of Puerto Ricans.
Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans and the rest of the Latino community in the United States continue to wonder when they will be accepted as social equals.
*Ediberto Román is Professor of Law, Florida International University; Ernesto Sagas is Professor of Ethnic Studies, Colorado State University
This article was originally published in The Conversation
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