During Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show, my family, a mix of Filipinos and Cubans, was a hot and beautiful mess. We deeply resonated with the unapologetic pride, critical history and cultural wealth Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny brought to our living room.
We smiled and cried, all while salsa-stepping to Bad Bunny’s performance. We immediately texted our extended families to invite them to share this beautiful moment: from the entire delivery in Spanish to the set design that showcased Puerto Rico’s rich agricultural history, and the performer handing his newly minted Grammy award to a Latino child — a symbol of a young Bad Bunny and perhaps the future of immigrant youth.
Bad Bunny delivered an exquisite lesson in forging a sense of belonging and interrogating democracy. As a public educator and researcher on race and well-being, I believe his performance should be taught in all classrooms this week to spark critical discussions on immigration, history and kinship amid an era of social and political division. Here are some lessons we can all learn from Bad Bunny:
1) Spotlighting multilingual belonging and power
Bad Bunny sang in Spanish the entire time. On the global stage, that challenges the expectation that English is the price of admission and belonging. Many new immigrant youth who speak only Spanish deserve classroom lessons that allow them to use their language to express their full selves, emotionally and intellectually. Conversely, for students who speak only English, this forces them to put themselves in their Spanish-speaking peers’ shoes to grasp the lesson and empathize with their diverse experiences. A question I would ask to spark discussion about multilingual belonging and power is:
“Who is expected to assimilate through language or behavior, and what does that expectation teach us about who is seen to belong?”
2) Teaching critical history
Bad Bunny’s performance is an example of political art. It incorporated aspects of Puerto Rico’s struggles with colonialism through the power grid issues tied to “El Apagón” (The Black Out). Although Puerto Rico receives federal funding each year, frequent power outages persist due to insufficient support for long-term infrastructure repair and maintenance. A question I would ask students regarding critical history is:
“How does limiting access to infrastructure (i.e., water, electricity and housing) prevent belonging?”
3) Symbolism
Bad Bunny’s performance was also a masterpiece in symbolism. The opening sugar cane field invoked Puerto Rico’s history of industrial slave labor, and was also an homage to the jibarro, or the iconic Puerto Rican countrymen. The celestial light blue Puerto Rican flag Bad Bunny marched with was reminiscent of the pro-independence movement from the 1868 “Grito de Lares” revolt inspired by the Cuban Revolutionary Party of New York. The flag was birthed in diaspora, and was once deemed a crime to wave it. To incorporate critical questions about symbolism, one can ask:
“What does the layering of the sugar cane field, jibarro and the pro-independence flag say about counter-narratives, diaspora, and belonging?”
4) Allyship and Expansiveness
Allyship and expansiveness were huge themes in Bad Bunny’s performance. Toward the end, Bad Bunny explicitly names Cuba, Bolivia, Canada, México, Haiti, Nicaragua, Jamaica and other countries, all while holding up their flags to show the rich tapestry and expansiveness of America beyond solely the United States. This decentering of the U.S. is a part of his larger counter-statement against the Trump administration. A strong discussion question on allyship could be:
“How can educators foster the well-being of all their students’ identities through recognition and explicit teaching of shared histories of oppression and cultural wealth?”
Beyond this Super Bowl performance, I hope educators invest time in including more of Bad Bunny’s work in their curriculum and lesson plans. His work not only focuses on Puerto Rican and broader issues of belonging and democracy tied to Latinx communities, but also on other colonial relationships, as in his song “Lo que le Pasó a Hawaii” (“What happened to Hawaii.”)
His work demonstrates joy through art and resistance. Teaching Bad Bunny is not just about embedding pop culture into your lesson; it’s about giving students the opportunity to explore critical histories, identities, and languages that help foster a sense of collective healing.
Tony DelaRosa is a co-founder of the NYC Men Teach Asian American initiative and a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s educational leadership and policy analysis department. He’s the author of the award-winning book “Teaching the Invisible Race.” His work has appeared in NBC News, Harvard Ed Magazine, Mochi Magazine and elsewhere.
This story about Bad Bunny was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
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