When Bad Bunny took the stage at Super Bowl LX, the spectacle was expected, but the closing statement was a deliberate provocation. As he wrapped his set, he turned a football toward the camera to reveal the words “Together, we are America,” while stadium screens flashed a line that has become his mantra: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love”.
For many viewers in the U.S., “America” is a synonym for their nation. But for Bad Bunny and millions of others across the Western Hemisphere, “America” is a shared home—a vast landmass of 35 sovereign nations and distinct territories stretching from the Canadian Arctic to Tierra del Fuego. His performance was not just a musical set; it was a geography lesson delivered to the world’s largest audience. By following his “God bless America” declaration with a roll call of nations from Cuba to Venezuela, he asserted that Spanish-speaking, Black, and Indigenous peoples are not guests in America, but architects of it.
“We Are Humans, and We Are Americans”
The pairing of geographic claims with moral assertions framed the performance as a direct response to rising xenophobia and political division. Just days prior at the Grammys, Bad Bunny had been even more explicit, telling the audience, “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens – we are humans, and we are Americans”.
At the Super Bowl, he distilled this message into the visual of the football and the screen text. By broadening the definition of “we,” Bad Bunny challenged exclusionary rhetoric often directed at migrants and Latin American communities. The message underscores that the bonds between the nations of the Americas are historical and human. It posits that the “American” experience is defined by the cross-pollination of cultures across the entire hemisphere, rather than allegiance to a single flag.
To understand the weight of Bad Bunny’s statement, it is necessary to understand the sheer scale of the region he invoked. The Americas cover roughly 28% of the world’s land area, divided geographically into four distinct sections.
- North America: While often colloquially used to refer only to the U.S. and Canada, geographically, North America includes Mexico and Greenland. It is the northern anchor of the hemisphere.
- Central America: This narrow isthmus connects the two massive continents. It comprises seven nations—Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama—serving as the physical bridge of the Americas.
- South America: The southern continent includes major global powers like Brazil and Argentina, along with Andean nations like Colombia and Peru. It is legally and geographically distinct from the north, yet connected by history.
- The Caribbean: This archipelago includes sovereign island nations like Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. Culturally distinct but geographically integrated, it is the fourth pillar of the Americas.
Latin, Anglo, and Middle America
Bad Bunny’s performance also navigated the complex cultural terminologies that layer over these geographic regions. His music, a fusion of Caribbean rhythms and global pop, bridges the divides between these classifications.
- Latin America vs. Anglo-America: This is the primary cultural fault line. Anglo-America refers generally to the United States and Canada, defined by English law and language. Latin America encompasses the nations where Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French) dominate—including Mexico, most of Central and South America, and parts of the Caribbean.
- Spanish America: A subset of Latin America, this term specifically refers to the Spanish-speaking populations, excluding Portuguese-speaking Brazil. As a Puerto Rican, Bad Bunny represents Spanish America within the U.S. political sphere.
- Middle America: Often used by geographers, this term groups Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean together, highlighting their shared history and proximity to the United States, distinct from the Southern Cone of South America.
Ultimately, “Together, We Are America” is a rejection of the idea that these labels—North vs. South, Anglo vs. Latin—are barriers. Instead, Bad Bunny’s finale suggested they are tiles in a larger mosaic. By claiming the word “America” for everyone from the Yukon to the Rio Grande to the Amazon, and urging his audience to remember that “if we fight, we have to do it with love,” he reminded the Super Bowl audience that they share a hemisphere, a history, and, ideally, a future.
