How Bad Bunny reframed what “America” means on the Super Bowl stage

Bad Bunny celebrated America on Super Bowl Sunday - all of America, the continent. As a person born and raised in the United States, I have always referred to myself in English as an American. Most of us would. It is called the United States of America. As in, America the continent. Unfortunately, in English, Unitedstatesian is just a mouthful and too long, and not technically a word, so we call ourselves American. This works fine in English and we never think a thing of it.

Well, learn Spanish and speak to anyone from Latin America and call yourself “Americano/a”, and you’ll likely be having another conversation. In Spanish, thankfully, there does exist a word for the Americans from the U.S. - Estadounidense. And you’d better well use that instead of Americana, lest you have to explain why you were simply translating the English word directly and not trying to claim the whole continent for yourself.

If you’ve never had that exchange, you might not realize how deeply frustrating it can be for people across Latin America. To them, America is not a country. It is a shared landmass. North America. Central America. South America. One continent with dozens of nations, histories, languages, and identities, none of which belong to the United States alone.

What Bad Bunny did at the end of his Super Bowl halftime performance was bring that long-standing tension into the biggest television moment of the year, and somehow turn it into unity instead of division.

“God Bless America” redefined

At the end of his halftime performance, Bad Bunny said “God bless America”, and then listed off all of the countries in South and North America, not just the United States, while people marched beside him holding the flags of all those countries.

As flags from across the hemisphere filled the field, he held a football reading, “Together, we are America.”

It was subtle, but powerful and unmistakable. Bad Bunny wasn’t rejecting the phrase “God bless America.” He was reclaiming it and reminding viewers that America is bigger than borders, bigger than language, and bigger than politics. America is a continent shaped by migration, labor, colonization, resistance, and shared history. It includes the United States, but it does not belong to it.

In less than a minute, on the largest stage in American sports, Bad Bunny reframed a phrase many of us have heard our entire lives. He didn’t scold. He didn’t lecture. He invited. And for a moment, under the lights of the Super Bowl, America meant what it always has, just not what we’re used to being reminded of.

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