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A familiar face is set to breathe life into the Levi's Stadium faithful come Super Bowl Sunday. He's never played in a football game before.
Bad Bunny is a headlining name in the headlining event in American sports, set to take the stage during the Super Bowl 60 halftime show.
The 31-year-old -- real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio -- is arguably the world's biggest pop star. Many know his motherland -- Bad Bunny was born and raised in Puerto Rico.
But the island's political status is mired in confusion. The United States laid claim to the region following its victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War. The territory was ceded without the approval of indigenous Puerto Ricans. More than a century later, the archipelago's push for independence remains in flux.
So, just what is Bad Bunny's background. And is he a U.S. citizen? The Sporting News has you covered.
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Where is Bad Bunny from?
Bad Bunny hails from Puerto Rico. The 31-year-old was born in Bayamón and raised in the Almirante Sur barrio of Vega Baja, a town located on the northern coast of the country.
Bad Bunny's childhood was shaped by music. Salsa, merengue and reggaetón danced through his home, as did Latin trap -- a genre of music shaped, partially, by the music from the same name that emerged in Black enclaves across the southern United States.
"I've always been very proud of where I come from," Bad Bunny told Billboard in 2018. "I love my island. It means pride, it means love, it means a lot of things to me.
"Being a Puerto Rican, it means everything. It's what I am. And it feels good to be one more artist representing the island."
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Is Bad Bunny a U.S. citizen?
Bad Bunny -- and his fellow Puerto Ricans -- are, indeed, U.S. citizens.
That hasn't always been the case. Prior to American conquest of the island in 1898, Puerto Rico was a possession of the Spanish Empire. Spain ceded the "territory" to the United States after its defeat in the Spanish-American War.
Puerto Ricans weren't granted independence until 1917, when President Woodrow Wilson passed the Jones-Shafroth Act. The legislation infringed upon Puerto's Rico's political and economic autonomy, forcing the island to separate its government into executive, judicial and legislative branches. The U.S.' executive branch was imbued with authority to "veto or override any law" enacted by the island's internal bicameral legislature, according to the Library of Congress. The island's official language was made to be English. The Puerto Rican senate overturned that decision with a vote in 2015, relegating English to a secondary language behind Spanish.
Wilson's act facilitated the U.S. Army to draft 20,000 Puerto Ricans for service in World War I. They were sent to the Panama Canal en masse, tasked with protecting the U.S.' imperial interests in Latin America.
It took the U.S. another 30 years to grant Puerto Ricans the right to vote for their own governor.
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Is Puerto Rico part of the United States?
Puerto Rico is neither a state nor an independent country. Rather, it's a territory of the United States, also known as a commonwealth. The island has faced disenfranchisement from the U.S.'s federal government since the Insular Cases of 1901, a set of rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court that asserted that the United States wasn't required to grant constitutional rights to the indigenous population of those living in Puerto Rico and other annexed territories.
The Court held that Puerto Rico “is a territory appurtenant and belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States.”
Importantly, Puerto Rico is, at least in technical terms, an unincorporated territory. Incorporated territories are typically are offered a pathway to statehood. Unincorporated territories -- like Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands -- are not.
"The Insular Cases thus gave sanction to U.S. imperialism by both withholding most constitutional protections from these territories and denying them statehood," said the Center for Constitutional Rights' Luna Martinez in 2021. "The Supreme Court’s treatment of Puerto Rico is an illustration of how U.S. constitutional law has not only furthered but produced and codified colonialism."
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Seven plebiscites have been held to allow Puerto Ricans to determine the island's relationship with the United States. Ballots have differed over the years, with the latest ticket -- held in 2024 -- presenting voters with three options: statehood, independence and sovereign free association. Free association allows the United States to maintain a military presence in smaller countries, according to Puerto Rico Report.
Fifty-eight percent of voting age Puerto Ricans supported statehood in the island's latest plebiscite. The statehood option included the following language: “U.S. citizenship of those born in Puerto Rico is recognized, protected, and secured under the U.S. Constitution in the same way such citizenship is for all U.S. citizens born in the other States.” That wasn't the case the other two options -- independence and sovereign free association.
Why isn't Puerto Rico a state?
While recent plebiscites have indicated Puerto Ricans broadly support statehood, the island hasn't yet been incorporated into the United States. There's a belief that the federal government is unwilling to introduce a new population into its voting bloc -- Latinos have traditionally voted for Democrats en masse.
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More vitally, though, the U.S.' present relationship with Puerto Rico is advantageous for the United States government. A branch of the U.S. Army National Guard is stationed in Puerto Rico. So too is a military base -- Fort Buchanan.
The independence movement remains present in Puerto Rican politics. Juan Dalmau, secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, ran for governor on the island as a third-party candidate. While he lost the election, he more than doubled his share of votes from the prior election, collecting 31 percent of votes. Dalmau fielded quite the endorsement from one of Puerto Rico's biggest stars: Bad Bunny himself.
To that end, the 31-year-old referred to Puerto Ricans as Americans while denouncing ICE during his acceptance speech for the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say, ‘ICE out!’” Bad Bunny said. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
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Bad Bunny's latest album, "Debí Tirar Más Fotos", embraces a distinctly Boricua culture and heritage, one that he feels is increasingly less present in an island scarred by tourism, military occupation and non-domiciled investors. He, like many younger Puerto Ricans, have felt the pinpricks of austerity, corruption, mismanagement of natural disasters and gentrification, writes Vox's Marissa Martinez.
To be clear, independence remains a minority position in Puerto Rico. But Bad Bunny's music has served as a galvanizing force for those yearning for a break from U.S.-imposed domination on the archipelago.
Does Puerto Rico vote for president?
Residents of Puerto Rico are unable to participate in presidential elections.
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