Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show Arrives at the Right Time
While speaking Spanish is criminalized on the streets, this weekend it will be celebrated on America's biggest stage.
Pop culture has a way of showing up in the damndest moments. When the most marginalized are rendered invisible by mainstream narratives, art arrives uninvited, unfiltered, and impossible to ignore.
After winning Album of the Year at the Grammys, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, is preparing to take the Super Bowl halftime stage this Sunday—against the backdrop of U.S. federal agents conducting coordinated raids across Latino communities nationwide. ICE routinely stops people of color on the street, asking where they’re from and scrutinizing accents that don’t sound “American.” Speaking Spanish on the subway, at work, or in schools—even in cities where it has been spoken for generations—is treated as evidence of foreignness.
Bad Bunny does not sidestep that reality. He starts his acceptance speech at the Grammy…
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