Natalia Rodríguez Vicente, Lecturer in Translation & Interpreting Studies, University of Essex
The Super Bowl halftime show is one of the most watched cultural events in the US. Every year, tens of millions of viewers tune in, many of them less for the sport than for the spectacle. That reach makes halftime a rare moment in which ideas about national identity and belonging are staged for a global audience.
At the 2026 Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny delivered a halftime performance almost entirely in Spanish and packed with carefully staged symbolism. To understand what the show was communicating, it helps to look closely at four key moments.
1. Sugar cane fields
The show opened in a landscape of sugar cane fields and performers dressed as jíbaros (rural farmers) wearing traditional pava hats. These elements nod to the island’s agricultural roots and carry deep historical and cultural weight, as sugar cane points directly to the plantation economy, first under Spanish colonial rule and later reorganised under US governance.
2. Ricky Martin and Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawái
Ricky Martin is a Puerto Rican singer best known internationally for hits like Livin’ la Vida Loca. Instead of performing one of his global anthems, he sang an excerpt from Bad Bunny’s song Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawái, which frames Hawaii as a cautionary tale for Puerto Rico, warning against the consequences of over-tourism and gentrification:
Quieren quitarme el río Y también la playa. Quieren el barrio mío Y que abuelita se vaya.
No, no suelte’ la bandera ni olvide’ el lelolai. Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái.
They want to take my river, and want the beach as well. They want my neighbourhood, and want Grandma gone.
No, don’t let go of the flag, and don’t forget the lelolai. As I don’t want them to do to you what they did to Hawai?i.
The lyrics trace loss as a gradual process that begins with land and natural resources (“the river” and “the beach”), then moves inward to community space (“my neighbourhood”), family continuity (“grandma”), and cultural memory itself (“lelolai”, a traditional refrain), urging listeners not to “let go of the flag”, as a symbol of identity.
3. Electricity poles sparking
The staging of jíbaros climbing sparking electricity poles, suggesting overload and failure, during El Apagón, Bad Bunny’s protest song about chronic power outages on the island, can be read as a visual reference to Puerto Rico’s fragile power grid following Hurricane Maria.
According to the latest data from the US Energy Information Administration, Puerto Rico experienced an average of around 27 hours of power outages per year between 2021 and 2024. By contrast, customers in the mainland US typically had about two hours of outages per year. The poles thus functioned as signs of uneven material conditions.
4. A continental roll call after God Bless America
The performance closed with Bad Bunny saying: “God Bless America” followed by a roll call of countries across South, Central and North America, as well as parts of the Caribbean. The sequence challenged a familiar assumption about who counts as “America”. In everyday US English, America is often used as shorthand for the United States as in Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” Across much of Latin America, América refers to the continent.
Why the symbolism matters
These four moments form one narrative: the sugar cane fields root the performance in Puerto Rico’s colonial history. Ricky Martin’s lyrics name the risk of cultural erasure. The electricity poles tie questions of identity to material inequality. Finally, the roll call after God Bless America expands the frame outward, celebrating the continent as a shared, plural space.
The show has provoked strong reactions, including Donald Trump dismissing it as “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, ever”.
On the biggest stage in US popular culture, the performance pushed Latin visibility at the highest mainstream level. Against the scale of the spectacle, and the controversy it provoked, a message glowed quietly in the background: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
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Natalia Rodríguez Vicente does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
