Bad Bunny's Love Letter to Puerto Rico
Garbage.
In case you haven’t noticed, this week Puerto Rico has been trending after a guest speaker, who is a comedian, spoke at former President Trump's rally at the Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."
The Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from the comedian’s comments about Puerto Ricans and Latinos. Danielle Alvarez, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said that the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.” Trump has also been widely criticized when he blocked disaster relief for hurricane-hit Puerto Rico in 2017.
Bad Bunny, who doesn’t shy away from voicing his views on Puerto Rico’s politics addressed Trump’s response to hurricanes Irma and Maria with a clip on Instagram, shared with his 45.6 million followers, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris with the caption: “I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and competent leader.”
Puerto Rico is home to 3.2 million U.S. citizens and is still recovering from the devastating impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, which caused billions in damage as well as a loss of power across the island.
How important is Bad Bunny's apparent endorsement?
Bad Bunny was Spotify's most streamed artist from 2020 to 2022. According to the Pew Research Center, about two-thirds of Puerto Ricans live in the United States, and they make up one of America's largest Latino groups. Bad Bunny wasn't the only Puerto Rican to condemn Trump – Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Luis Fonsi, and Ricky Martin did the same this weekend.
On Tuesday, October 29, Bad Bunny posted an 8-minute-long tribute video that he used as an introduction from his concerts in San Juan in 2021 which highlights the island’s history, culture, and prominent figures, set to inspirational music. It features icons like baseball star Roberto Clemente, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
He captioned it “garbage.”
Bad Bunny ended the video with a statement in Spanish meaning “We have been fighting since day one of our existence.”