Like many in Chicagoland, I greeted last Sunday with eager anticipation of the Super Bowl. Our household started preparing the game day spread early, but rather than wings and dip, we set out pernil (traditional pork shoulder roast) and arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas). We called it the “Benito Bowl,” and like many Puerto Ricans, I was excited to see our culture and language displayed on one the world’s biggest stages.
Bad Bunny, or Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, did not disappoint. Despite facing immense pressure and opposition from some for not being “American” enough or for not singing in English, Benito offered a halftime show that was a sumptuous visual and auditory sweep through Puerto Rican history and culture. At a time when many of us are wary of simply speaking Spanish in public, Benito showcased triumph and joy without compromising the authenticity and specificity of the Puerto Rican experience.
Since Sunday, I have traded messages with friends who felt this show deeply. It was our messy history, our faces, our rhythms and our distinct Spanish accent (so often maligned), represented without filter or apology. I’m a Puerto Rican who has lived her life between Puerto Rico and the mainland, and it is both amazing and bittersweet to have such unexpected visibility. Amazing because it was beautiful and bittersweet because it is clear that we are not fully part of the body politic.
Puerto Ricans have had U.S. citizenship since 1917 and have fought in every major U.S. military conflict since. My grandfather was in the Borinqueneers, a segregated and highly decorated Army unit. Yet an island-based Puerto Rican cannot vote in national elections and has what is in many ways a conditional citizenship, one that constantly reminds us that we do not belong, that we are a people between spaces. Bad Bunny pointed out the wounds but centered resilience and fraternity. Indeed, the halftime show’s setting in a sugarcane field highlights the sugar and rum production in the Caribbean, industries at the heart of the Colonial systems and slave trade that shaped our history. That recognition made clear that halftime was not to be just a party, but a rendering of the resilience of our people for a global audience.
The centrality of women emerged as a vital element in the show. The depiction of female shopkeepers and mothers, punctuated by women like me standing by concrete building blocks, underscores our importance as memory keepers within a society that has often needed rebuilding. The faces of those women represented an unbroken chain of those who survived turbulent histories before me. It was an acknowledgment that my heart needed. Bad Bunny’s own jersey included his mother’s last name “Ocasio,” further reinforcing the foundational role of women in Puerto Rican culture.
Using a classic Spike Lee dolly shot and a live orchestra, he delivered a serenata (serenade) telling “us,” the Spanish-speaking viewers, to believe in our own capacity to transcend. The moment is boldly cinematic and intimate in its eye contact and use of Spanish as a mother tongue, but it is also an homage to those of us in the diaspora who were shaped by Lee’s New York. Throughout the performance, dancers of all shades and shapes moved to the beat, affirming that “Puerto Rican” does not mean a single race, body type, class or collapsed narrative.
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Bridging the quotidian in the U.S. mainland and elsewhere, Benito brought to life shared experiences familiar to us as a wider Latino family. From depicting a child sleeping on chairs at an exuberant wedding to dancing with Grandpa, he exhorted us to live and love without trepidation at a time when fear has permeated Latino communities. After presenting his Grammy to a young boy embodying collective hopes, the show shifted us to Ricky Martin, whose mournful rendition of “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii” (“What Happened to Hawaii”), proposes Hawaiian statehood as a cautionary tale, invoking an endangered “home” worth preserving.
When Bad Bunny lifted the Puerto Rican flag amid towering electrical poles, our hearts skipped a beat. His sky blue triangle flag is the original flag associated with Puerto Rican autonomy, illegal to carry or own at the time of my mother’s birth. This flag resists erasure and reclaims a history rarely taught on the mainland. Hoisting it amid the electrical poles while singing “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”) was a reference to the nearly yearlong power outage after Hurricane María’s destruction in 2017 and the continuing energy crisis in Puerto Rico. From my home in the U.S., I saw the island ripped to shreds on TV and mailed my grandparents batteries and essentials for nine months. My cousin, an emergency room physician, performed procedures by the light of an iPhone. When Bad Bunny climbed those electrical poles, the way neighbors once did to try to fix them themselves, my mother wept.
Bad Bunny wrapped up the show with a display of Latin American and Caribbean flags while singing a plena song with African rhythms used for both protest and celebration. He called out “God Bless America” — yet he disrupted what “America” means, naming countries from Argentina to Canada. This sense of pan-American pride goes back to treatises such as José Martí’s “Nuestra América” in which America is collectively perceived. Bad Bunny meant “God bless us all,” and Latinos everywhere understood. Tellingly, Spanish and Portuguese have a word, “estadounidense,” to mean a citizen of the United States — not “American.”
Amid relentless criticism, Bad Bunny gave us a moment in which enjoyment and pride functioned as resistance. We shed tears born of nostalgia, memory, anger and love. Despite economic and living conditions that constantly push Puerto Ricans to leave the homeland, the culture and the people hold the line.
Benito’s magnificent staging mirrored our strength and encouraged us to stay in the fight, in whatever language speaks to our hearts. We remain here, from Humboldt Park to the Bronx to Orlando to San Juan. Seguimos aquí.
Lara N. Dotson-Renta is a Puerto Rican writer and educator based in Chicagoland.
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