Brad Brooks
AURORA, Colo., Feb 12 (Reuters) – Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show celebrated Latino culture in Spanish, providing an uplifting moment of cultural pride for many Hispanic residents of Aurora, Colorado, where daily life has been upended by fears of immigration raids and deportations.
The diverse Denver suburb has been in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump. On the campaign trail and after returning to office, Trump claimed the city had been overrun by Venezuelan gang members, a claim disputed by local citizens and leaders.
Immigration raids have increased in the city of 403,000, where Latinos make up more than 31% of the population. Many Latinos who live there, regardless of their immigration status, say they feel besieged, insulted and attacked.
During what feels like a dark time, more than a dozen Latino residents of Aurora said in interviews that Bad Bunny’s performance — which Trump called “an insult to the great United States” — felt less like simple entertainment and more like a cultural lifeline of recognition, a brief moment of visibility and pride.
“There’s definitely an element of fear in the Hispanic community — people who are documented, people who are undocumented. A lot of people are afraid to come out of their homes, and community morale is very low,” said William Herrera, manager of Panaderia el Paisa, a popular bakery in the center of the community.
“That’s why Bad Bunny’s performance was so beautiful. It fills me with pride that he was able to represent Hispanics on America’s biggest stage at a time when all the racists were trying to crush us, and that he had a message that love is more powerful than hate,” Herrera said. “He gave the whole community courage.”
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Residents say fear in the Hispanic community is keeping people from going out. Some streets feel emptier, large birthday parties are less common, and crowded backyard carne asada barbecues are now rare.
Across the United States, concerns about immigration raids dominate daily conversations and force Latinos to be cautious about where they go, speak Spanish and be visible in their communities.
As a TV tuned to the Spanish-language network Univision played a clip from the Bad Bunny show at Mary Zuloaga’s beauty salon in Aurora on Tuesday, she reflected on the show’s importance.
Zulloaga, who was born in Colombia and has been in the United States since the early 1980s, said the Latino community experienced similar moments of anxiety, particularly during the administration of former President Ronald Reagan, and she saw how those fears negatively impacted collective behavior and identity.
She said the climate under Trump is worse than it was in the 1980s, and she worries her language or appearance could trigger arrest and detention, even though she is a U.S. citizen.
For Zulloaga, it was crucial that “Bad Bunny” be performed entirely in Spanish, despite criticism that doing so would alienate monolingual English speakers.
“He showed that governments can terrorize our communities, but they cannot take away our languages,” Zuloaga said. “If we let them do that, then we lose our identity.”
At the nearby Ollin Cafetzin, an ethnic studies library with 1,000 books is open to all and provides training for those who wish to observe immigration raids. The owners also work closely with immigrant and worker rights nonprofits to provide support to undocumented people.
Café co-owner Cynthia Moreno-Romero welcomes the backlash in “Bad Bunny” art.
Moreno-Romero said his performance was similar to the educational and social events she organized at the coffee shop.
“At a time when fear seems to be the only thing we can hold on to, it’s important for us to really channel fear into imagination and organization,” Moreno-Romero said. “It’s important that we emphasize the joy of these moments.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Aurora, Colorado; Editing by Donna Bryson and Cynthia Osterman)
