\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBad Bunny<\/a> announced his Super Bowl halftime performance in a fully Puerto Rican way: wearing a pava hat, chanclas, and a Hector Lavoe-inspired suit, while sitting atop a football goalpost at sunset on a beach in Puerto Rico. This announcement came just a week after Bad Bunny ended his historic 31-day residency at El Coliseo de Puerto Rico with a record-breaking livestream of the final show via Amazon Music. It was the most-watched single-artist performance<\/a> in the history of the platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tNow Bad Bunny is preparing to achieve yet another major cultural milestone as the first Super Bowl halftime artist to perform solely in Spanish. But this historically significant moment comes with political implications that have led to deeply divided viewpoints.<\/p>\n \n\tLatin music is the fastest-growing genre<\/a> in the U.S., with revenues of $1.4 billion<\/a>. And Bad Bunny is Latin music\u2019s biggest star. But at the same time, Latinos and the Spanish language are being targeted<\/a> as migrants are violently kidnapped on street corners and disappeared by the Trump administration. Bad Bunny himself said he skipped touring across the U.S. because of the potential for ICE presence<\/a> at his concerts, as ICE raids in major mainland American cities have been much more prevalent than in Puerto Rico. Still, this has led some to question why he is choosing to do a performance in the U.S. now. His status as a Spanish-speaking Latino, his statement about ICE, and his longstanding opposition to President Trump<\/a> have also made him a natural target for conservative backlash. Conservative political commentator Benny Johnson called him a \u201cMassive Trump hater Anti-ICE activist\u201d<\/a> with \u201cNo songs in English.\u201d Other commentators online suggest that he should be detained<\/a> or deported ahead of the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhile negative responses to the halftime announcement echo centuries-long sentiments of Latinos as perpetual foreigners, it also reflects the fact that most Americans still do not know that Puerto Rico, where Bad Bunny was born, raised, and still lives, is a territory of the U.S. and Puerto Ricans have U.S. citizenship. So, every single one of his 31 residency shows took place in the U.S. By forcing residents of the 50 states to come to him, his residency de-centered what the U.S. mainland means by making Puerto Rico itself the mainland for his shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n