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Bad Bunny: “Puerto Rico is part of America”

Puerto Rican megastar Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) won the Album of the Year award at the Grammy awards and gave an emotional speech in Spanish, thanking his mother, his fellow artists, and God, among others. But the speech that has been making headlines is the one he gave in English earlier in the night, after winning the Best Música Urbana Album award.

“ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans. I want to say to the people, I know it’s tough not to hate in these days. I was thinking sometime we get … contaminados? I don’t know how to say that in English. The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love, so please, we need to be different. We fight, we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them. We love our people, we love our family, and that’s the way to do it, with love. Don’t forget that please.”

Representing Puerto Rico

Comedian Trevor Noah asked Bad Bunny before the awards whether he could come live in Puerto Rico “if things keep getting worse in America.” The musican responded, “Trevor, I have some news for you. Puerto Rico is part of America.”

Bad Bunny also focused on Puerto Rico’s and Hispanic Americans’ importance to America in his Saturday Night Live remarks on last October: “I’m very excited to be doing the Super Bowl, and I know people all around the world who love my music are also happy. Especially all of the Latinos and Latinas in the world [and] here in the United States who have worked to open doors. It’s more than a win for myself, it’s a win for all of us. Our footprints and our contribution in this country, no one will ever be able to take that away or erase it.”

The immigration issue

Concerns and controversy about the actions of the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) have been in the forefront recently for many Americans, not only for immigrants. When he said “we,” Bad Bunny might have been thinking about Hispanic residents of the U.S. in general. 90% of detainees in recent ICE actions have been Latino, according to research conducted at UCLA. He may also have been speaking for the Puerto Rican community, since he said, “we are Americans.” People born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens by birthright, but people in Puerto Rican communities may still be nervous about ICE raids.

“We” may also have had a larger scope, referring to immigrants in the United States, a nation of immigrants. While Bad Bunny is not himself an immigrant, many U.S. citizens across the country are standing up for immigrants, recognizing their own immigrant heritage and the value of new residents in U.S. communities.

As a Puerto Rican, Bad Bunny can also readily empathize with immigrants and other Americans searching for their place in the U.S. Citizens of the United States living in Puerto Rico — no matter where they were born — have no voting representatives in Congress and no vote in U.S. presidential elections.

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