Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show celebrated America – all of it – with a message of unity

New York (AP) — To better understand some of the significance of Bad Bunny's historic Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday night, start at the end.

“God Bless America,” were the first and few English-language words uttered by the Spanish-language performer, who then proceeded to list countries in the Americas, including the United States and Canada. Behind him, a screen read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” a direct reference to his speech at the 2026 Grammy Awards where the Puerto Rican superstar took home the top prize.

America, he seemed to be reminding his global audience including viewers in the U.S., makes up a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere.

It was a poignant gesture for an artist whose performance was politicized the moment it was announced, labeled un-American by his detractors despite the fact that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Most recently President Donald Trump described his set as “an affront to the Greatness of America.”

In the final moments of his performance, Bad Bunny was joined by a crowd waving flags of different countries in the Americas, but also “territories of other countries like Bonaire or the U.S. Virgin Islands, ” said Petra Rivera-Rideau, associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College and co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.”

He was also surrounded by plena musicians — a Puerto Rican genre associated with community and protest — and held a football that read, “Together, we are America.”

“This is a really profound statement of Latino belonging in the United States and immigrant belonging in the United States,” Rivera-Rideau said. “Bad Bunny is obviously very aware of the backlash against this halftime show. And a lot of that backlash has to do with this assumption that because it’s in Spanish, it’s somehow excluding people. And I think what we saw last night with Bad Bunny’s halftime show is that he was actually including people, inviting people into his world and at the same time, making a case that immigrants and Latinos are as much a fabric of the United States as anything else.”

Simultaneously, he made the argument for “America” as a larger, hemispheric identity.

“He is trying to reframe America as this continent-spanning container,” said Reanna Cruz, music critic and senior producer for Vox Media’s music podcast Switched on Pop. “The main takeaway I have from the performance is the highlight of community. … If we have nothing else in times of hardship, we have community and we have joy, and a way to access that is to not shut out your fellow humans in whatever country it may be. The reframing of America as something that spans half the globe is really radical.”

There's a long history of that idea. “Everyone from Rubén Lárez to Los Tigres del Norte have created songs that have used this idea of all of the Americas coming together … of America being a kind of a cohesive unit,” said Rivera-Rideau. “But I think what it really boils down to is a statement that Latinos, Latin Americans, Caribbean people, immigrants, they belong and they’re just as American as anybody else.”

“He’s presenting a very capacious definition of what it is to be American,” said Christopher Campo-Bowen, assistant professor of musicology at Virginia Tech. “And within that, the idea of Puerto Rican sovereignty.

“He is presenting everything that he finds that makes Puerto Rico unique. And what makes Puerto Rico an autonomy culture and actor in the hemisphere — and presenting it all at once — and then also broadcasting this unifying message of ‘We are all Americans,'” he added. “He’s encouraging us all to recognize that uniqueness but not to let that difference become a source of enmity or hatred.”

Puerto Ricans are Americans in both ways Bad Bunny’s show explored — they are U.S. citizens, and the island nation is situated in the Americas. But it is complicated: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens no matter where they are born and have been since 1917. But Puerto Ricans who live on the island have limited citizenship rights; they cannot vote for President, they have no representation in Congress and they can be drafted into the military.

“What it boils down to is that Puerto Rico is a territory,” said Rivera-Rideau, an idea she says Bad Bunny explored when he waved the Puerto Rican flag with a light blue triangle, a color repeated on Lady Gaga's dress.

“That’s considered the original Puerto Rican flag. And once the U.S. takes over Puerto Rico in 1898, they change the color blue to match the U.S. flag. And so that light blue color on the Puerto Rican flag has become affiliated with Puerto Rican independence,” she explained. “So, I think we saw him commenting on this colonial relationship at the same time that he’s insisting on full recognition in the United States as a Latino, as an American, in the continental sense. Both things are happening in that halftime show.”

That is also reflected in the music of Puerto Rico, and of course, Bad Bunny. Think of the genre salsa as an example, which “represents the kind of unique status of Puerto Rico vis-a-vis the mainland United States, in that salsa would not have been possible without this relationship,” said Campo-Bowen. He noted that in the late 1940s and early '50s, Puerto Ricans migrated to New York in large numbers because of massive changes on the island. "They start communities there, encounter other people from Latin America, and then salsa comes about out of that mixture.

“It is based in the long history of colonialism and that carries those issues with it. But despite that, Puerto Rico has developed this unique culture with these unique musical signifiers which Bad Bunny is more than happy to draw on and celebrate.”

Bad Bunny's “God Bless America” contrasts certain conservative messaging of American identity. Consider the fact that there was an alternative halftime performance, organized by Turning Point USA and headlined by Kid Rock, called the “all-American Halftime show.”

“Bad Bunny turns this upside down and he says, ‘No, ‘God bless America’ and ‘America’ is all of these Latin American and Caribbean nations and the U.S. and Canada. We're all a part of it,” said Vanessa Díaz, associate professor of Chicano and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of “P FKN R.”

“It was about unity, but it was also about staking Latinos' claim in this country,” she said, particularly in a charged political moment as Trump’s immigration policies and executive actions have vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation, routine hearings have turned into deportation traps for migrants, detentions are prolonged and opposition for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown grows.

In her view, Bad Bunny's performance was “profoundly political” — just as it was when he said “ICE Out” at the 2026 Grammys — but on this stage, for its message of joy and unity.

“It was wildly imaginative and extremely educational. And yet we had fun and we danced and we cried,” Díaz said of the performance. “It was Bad Bunny at his best, being super specific about his homeland and its history and also welcoming people in to let themselves see themselves reflected in Puerto Rican culture and history.”

“Joy is resistance and dancing is resistance,” Cruz said. “For people in the Latino community, the show is very clear in how political it is.”

Bad Bunny performs during the halftime show of Super Bowl 60 between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Kenia Medal wears a Bad Bunny flag while waiting to watch the halftime show outside Levi's Stadium during the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

MILAN (AP) — Much like the Olympic flame, there is another symbol of triumph and transcendence — far less known — that graces one host city after another: a one-of-a-kind, wooden cross.

The Cross of the Athletes has arrived in Milan for the Winter Games and holds pride of place beside the main altar in the Basilica of San Babila. It is one of the city's oldest churches that — for a few weeks, while the cross is within its walls — holds the title of Church of Athletes.

The presence of the cross at the Games is a tangible sign of the Catholic Church ’s belief that sport is a powerful way to bring people together. And this cross is unique in that it is made from pieces of wood sourced in five continents, an apparent nod to the five Olympic rings that convey the same sentiment.

“We think of sport not as an instrument that separates, but as one that unites,” said the Rev. Stefano Guidi, who heads the Archdiocese of Milan’s Service for Oratories and Sport. “The cross represents this precisely through the way it was created.”

English artist Jon Cornwall used 15 pieces of wood from continents around the world to craft the cross, which made its grand debut at the London Olympics in 2012.

Since then, special ceremonies have marked its arrival to host cities for both the Summer and Winter Games. (The exception was Tokyo, when pandemic travel restrictions were in place.) Last June, it was in the Vatican for the Jubilee of Sport, celebrated with Pope Leo XIV, who has a long-standing personal connection to sport. And the cross is expected to travel to Los Angeles for the 2028 Games.

“The cross — carrying the prayers and hopes of athletes — is a Christian message addressed to the entire world of sport, a sign of hope for humanity, and a proposal of peace among peoples,” according to a document from the Vatican’s culture ministry, which includes a sports department.

Leo said in a message entitled “Life in Abundance” issued on the same day as the Milan Cortina opening ceremony, that sport brings people together and values the journey as well as the end result.

“It teaches us that we can strive for the highest level without denying our own fragility; that we can win without humiliating others; and that we can lose without being defeated as individuals,” he wrote.

On a recent February morning, Giovanna Spotti and her husband attended Mass at San Babila and took a moment to closely admire the cross.

“The Cross of the Athletes moves us a great deal, because it is displayed and venerated here,” said Spotti, who lives nearby. “And San Babila is important because it is a very old church, truly characteristic of Milan.”

The Romanesque basilica sits in the heart of the city near Piazza San Babila, a major transit and meeting point. Milan’s Catholic archdiocese has designated it the Church of Athletes during the Olympics and Paralympics.

As part of the church's activities for this period, it is celebrating some Masses in Italian, English, French and German.

The church was packed during the first Mass on Feb. 8, in Italian. The homily focused on the importance of embracing fraternity over individualism and fostering a spirit of unity beyond divisions.

Later, the Rev. Stefano Chiarolla celebrated a German-language Mass. All attendees were Italian, but Chiarolla said the initiative is important nonetheless.

“Multilingual Masses are a sign of welcome,” said Chiarolla, who asked German speakers to raise their hands at the end of his homily and smiled when merely one Italian man did. “People can always attend Mass in Italian, but the diocese wants to offer a visible sign of hospitality that reflects the international nature of the event.”

Marino Parodi, who raised his hand, said he attended because family issues prevented him from coming to the earlier service.

“I searched on the web and I found this option,” he said. “I was glad to find it.”

Both the display of the cross and the multilingual Masses are part of the Milan archdiocese's efforts to promote unity during the 2026 Winter Olympics. That broader program includes a youth-focused “Tour of Sports Values,” cultural exhibitions, a theatrical performance, concerts and inclusive sports initiatives, as well as art routes through some of Milan’s historic churches.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Worshippers attend one of several multilingual Masses at the Basilica of San Babila, also known as the Church of Athletes during the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/María Teresa Hernandez)

The “Cross of Athletes” is seen during a Mass at the Basilica of San Babila, known as the Church of Athletes during the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2026. The cross travels to Olympic host cities as a symbol of faith, unity, and the values of sport. (AP Photo/María Teresa Hernandez)