From La Casita to the Super Bowl: A Puerto Rican Story

I write this piece from a dual perspective that I carry with me every day: as both a Puerto Rican and an American, and as a psychiatrist who has spent years listening closely to how identity, culture, pride, and pain live inside people.

There is no doubt that seeing a Puerto Rican man, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, Bad Bunny, a reggaetón artist from a very small island, stand at the biggest stage in American sports is remarkable. For many of us, it was emotional. For others, it was uncomfortable. And for some, it was infuriating. All those reactions were expected.

Whenever a cultural moment is big enough (visible enough) to challenge norms, it will inevitably generate strong opinions. People will love it. People will hate it. That tension is not a flaw; it is the cost of meaning. And it deserves to be acknowledged honestly.

Perhaps the most prominent criticism of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance was that he chose to perform entirely in Spanish. Many assumptions followed. Some framed it as exclusionary. Others as political. From the NFL’s perspective, it may well have been a strategic decision, an attempt to connect with Latino and Hispanic audiences who traditionally gravitate more toward soccer than American football. What we do know for certain is this: the NFL approved it. Spanish was allowed (intentionally) on the largest public stage in the United States.

To understand why that matters, you must understand what Puerto Rico is.

Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. A colony. A Commonwealth. An Estado Libre Asociado, an “Associated Free State,” a term that sounds paradoxical because, in many ways, it is. We are American citizens by birthright, and for that, many of us are deeply grateful. That citizenship brings real protections, opportunities, and a sense of belonging. At the same time, Puerto Rico has been allowed (sometimes begrudgingly) to retain much of its language, culture, and traditions.

When you are born into a place with this kind of political status, you learn very early to both love and resent the structure you belong to.

The relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States has been complicated for over a century. From the moment American troops arrived on our shores, that relationship has carried tension, sometimes overt, sometimes quiet. There is even a historical account that when native Puerto Ricans saw the soldiers landing, they shouted “Green Go!”, a phrase that eventually evolved into the word “gringo.” That sense of arrival without invitation has never fully disappeared. It lives quietly in our collective memory.

And yet, despite this complicated history, Puerto Rico has survived by holding tightly to its culture.

That is what Bad Bunny put on that stage.

If you quiet the noise and look closely at the halftime show, what you see is not chaos, it is memory. The Casita at the center of the performance is not just a house. It is a cement home built to withstand hurricanes. The terrace where families sat in the evenings to catch a breeze. The place were fiestas would happen after the death of a newborn, because they will go straight to heaven (A masterpiece painted by Francisco Oller, called El Velorio). The place where neighbors called out greetings with a proper yelling, borrowed sugar for the 3 p.m. coffee, and shared news. The casita has always been the center of family, culture, economy, and politics in Puerto Rico.

The walking sugarcanes (mocked by some as fantasy creatures, like the March of the Ents from Lord of the Rings) represent the literal machinery that built the island. Sugar and rum were not abstractions; they were carried on the backs of laborers, step by step, generation by generation.

The tiendita on the corner brings back memories of riding your bike to buy candy or soda, only to realize you were short a few cents, and being told, “Don’t worry, I’ll write it down. Your parents can pay later.” That wasn’t charity. That was community.

The Piragua stand reminds us that sweetness comes with labor. Those blocks of ice weighed 30 to 40 pounds and were pulled long distances so that shaved ice could be shared on hot days with some supercharged sugary syrup that never gave you diabetes. Life on the island has always been both hard and sweet.

Yes, Bad Bunny’s lyrics do not represent every ideal of Puerto Rican culture. That is true. But they do reflect a reality that exists, not only in Puerto Rico, but everywhere. And beneath the surface, there is an honest desire to represent humble people in ways that feel larger than life.

One moment that stood out to me deeply was the symbolic act of passing success to a child. Some interpreted it politically. For many Puerto Ricans, it was something simpler and older: the belief that you survive colonization by ensuring the next generation does better than you did. You don’t hoard success, you hand it forward.

The same misinterpretation happened when Ricky Martin performed surrounded by bananas and plantains. Some critics called it reductive. But if you understand Puerto Rico, you know there is nothing more iconic than the plantain tree. One of our most iconic artists on our history paired with one of our most iconic fruits, that was not mockery. That was perfection.

There was criticism, too, about dancing, about bodies, about women moving with intensity and wearing little clothing. But anyone who has spent time on the island knows this is part of who we are. Puerto Rico is known for its sabrosura—intensity, rhythm, proximity, warmth (Yes summer is all year long). When you live on an island that is only 100 by 35 miles, you don’t have the luxury of distance. You bump into each other, emotionally and physically. Expression is unavoidable.

As a psychiatrist, this matters deeply to me.

During my training, I once sat in a lecture on borderline personality disorder. As the criteria were discussed (intense emotions, mood shifts, expressive behaviors) I remember thinking how easily someone without cultural competence could mislabel a Puerto Rican to having “borderline traits”. Our emotional intensity is not pathology. It is culture. And that intensity was exactly what you saw on that stage.

The domino table with elderly men is not just a game—it is collective wisdom. How the elderly men met to resolve the challenges of the community while playing some bones and surely drinking rum for good measure. Weddings in the middle of celebrations are not disrespectful, they are normal. If you attend a wedding in Puerto Rico, bring your dancing shoes. Life events happen inside joy, not separate from it.

And of course we will never forget the image of the traditional farmer’s hat, the Pava. La pava is a traditional wide-brimmed straw hat worn by jíbaros (rural workers) in Puerto Rico, made from palm leaves. It is a strong, iconic symbol of Puerto Rican cultural identity, labor, and resilience, famously adopted as the logo for the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) in 1938. To see people from all over the world fashioning La pava brings a sense of recognition of not only the incredible influence Puerto Ricans have given to the world of music, culture and entertainment, but how this impact started from the humblest of people, a sugar cane worker. The true mix of Taino Indians, African and European, like a blend of dreams that could never be repressed.

And yes—seeing Lady Gaga attempt salsa steps was quite cool!

There were political messages. Some people disagreed with them. That is the nature of the public square. And there is no larger public square in the United States than the Super Bowl halftime show.

In the end, Bad Bunny may not be the greatest singer of all time, and his lyrics may not always promote personal flourishing. But the opportunity to highlight the beauty, complexity, and humanity of Puerto Rican culture on that stage will be remembered by Puerto Ricans across the world for generations.

This love–hate relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States will continue until a political solution is found. But in the meantime, many of us live in the tension comfortably.

We love being Americans.

And we love being from a small island called Puerto Rico.

Both can be true.