Bad Bunny’s impact on Puerto Rico cuts both ways
- The San Juan Daily Star
- Sep 3
- 3 min read
By Gene Roman
Special to The Star
Musical megastar Bad Bunny’s 21-day musical residency in Puerto Rico pumped $200 million into the U.S. territory’s local economy.
“It is a rare example of fame being used for good,” writes Adrian Horton of the Guardian.
While Bad Bunny’s concerts are making the cash registers ring, his political speeches are making life harder for the 3.2 million U.S. citizens living in the unequal and undemocratic territory of Puerto Rico.
“As one of the island’s loudest cultural voices, Bad Bunny is using his global platform to promote a misleading narrative,” writes George Laws García of the U.S. Puerto Rico Statehood Council in D.C. “One that suggests Puerto Ricans want (political) separation from the United States, when in fact the opposite is true.”
Bunny (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) supports the dignified status option of political independence for Puerto Rico.
But his advocacy for this position clashes with the reality that island voters want Congress to make Puerto Rico a state. (SEE SOURCE LINK BELOW.)
In the four status consultations held between 2012 & 2024, Puerto Ricans selected statehood as their preferred status option. In November 2024, 58% of island voters chose that option again.
Bad Bunny opposes statehood because he fears that political integration will eviscerate Puerto Rico’s cultural heritage.
“I don’t want it to be Hawaii,” he says.
Political integration does not require cultural assimilation. The former U.S. territories of California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, New Mexico and Louisiana all became states while maintaining their ancestral Hispanic/Creole traditions.
Puerto Ricans in New York vote in presidential elections, elect individuals to serve their interests in the U.S. Senate and House and celebrate their heritage in annual festivals held in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and New York City.
Blaming outsiders for the fiscal and political problems that stem from living in an unequal U.S. territory is an effective, but dishonest misdirect.
As a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico falls under the territorial clause of the Constitution.
“The Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.”
In layman’s terms, that means that Congress holds all the cards.
This arrangement allows Congress to unilaterally impose a financial control board and treat Puerto Rico worse than it does a state in programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Nutritional Assistance.
As an unequal and undemocratic territory of the federal government, Puerto Rico is powerless to resist laws passed by Congress, signed by the president and ruled legal by the Supreme Court.
“Instead of using his platform to advocate for equality and full rights for the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico, he amplifies a minority political view — independence — that has never earned majority support in any plebiscite,” writes Laws García.
To be clear: Puerto Rico’s territorial status is undemocratic, colonial, and that it must change. Bad Bunny’s rhetoric disregards this fact.
The future of Puerto Rico should be decided by ballots cast by island residents seeking to end their unequal and undemocratic status as a U.S. territory.
Congress should listen and act.
Gene Roman works as a freelance reporter in New York City.
SOURCES: The past four Puerto Rico status plebiscites
2024
2020
https://elecciones2020.ceepur.org/Escrutinio_General_93/index.html#es/default/PLEBISCITO_Resumen.xml
2017
2012
“What Were the Results of the 2012 Plebiscite?
According to results certified by the Puerto Rico State Elections Commission, approximately 54.0% of those who cast ballots answered “no” to the first question: Should Puerto Rico retain its present territorial status?.
Question 2 asked voters to choose between three “non-territorial options”:
• Statehood
• Independence
• Sovereign free association
61.2% of voters chose statehood, according to the Puerto Rico Elections Commission.
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