COMMENTARY The English-only furor over Bad Bunny's Super Bowl gig disingenuously disregards America's historical reality — but so does a Spanish-only mindset that many immigrants still embrace.
When I retire, one of the volunteer gigs I’m considering is teaching English to Spanish-only immigrants — and Spanish to English-only Americans.
The reason: I’m tired of watching the former think there’s nothing wrong with not speaking a word of English in this country — while listening to the latter whine that there’s everything wrong with hearing so many words of Spanish spoken in this country.
Which of course brings us to Bad Bunny.
The NFL announced this week that the Puerto Rican reggaetón superstar will be the half-time performer at the next Super Bowl. So MAGA erupted in what may be the first documented case of mass spontaneous human combustion.
And the one unifying grievance that first responders have identified in the angry ashes is this:
Spanish.
Bad Bunny’s hits — like “DeBí TiRAR MáS FOTos,” arguably the most popular album of 2025 — are en español. MAGA militants are furious that Super Bowl halftime honors — the showbiz equivalent of being named the next Dalai Lama — would go to a non-English-singing artist.
But they’re not going hysterical for the reason you probably think.
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You might assume that America First forces believe not enough red-blooded Americans speak Spanish to warrant this "woke" Bad Bunny invitation being rammed down the nation’s English-dominant throat.
Think again.
What terrifies them is knowing that more than enough Americans hablan español to justify the NFL’s choice.
A fifth of the U.S. population, in fact, either speak Spanish at home or know it well enough to follow a good telenovela — or enjoy una canción chévere, a cool song, by Bad Bunny.
MAGA claims that an “open” U.S. border is the reason Spanish has tainted America's English landscape — much the same way our President and Eugenics-in-Chief, Donald Trump, claims immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
It’s why Trump is sweeping Home Depot parking lots this year for undocumented migrants.
If it feels bigoted to demand English-only entertainment at Super Bowls, it feels bad-mannered to expect Spanish-only engagement in Miami.
But Spanish’s stronghold here is only partly about immigration. It’s mostly about history and geography.
MAGA can expel all the foreign-born inhabitants it wants, but at this point in the American story it won’t banish Spanish as a national co-language.
Reggaetón idol
An English-speaking superpower can’t sit on a 2,000-mile-long border with a Spanish-speaking country and continent — a frontier carved out of a war of conquest in 1848, by the way — and then be scandalized to find out in the 21st century that it's home to the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking population behind Mexico.
Likewise, said superpower can’t colonize Spanish-speaking islands in its Caribbean neighborhood — say, Puerto Rico, where Bad Bunny and everyone else are U.S. citizens — and then be shocked! to hear a reggaetón idol is the next Super Bowl headliner.
It’s as disingenuous as Brexit Brits — after their country colonized India for two centuries — howling when they hear Hindi and Urdu being spoken at a shop down the street in Manchester.
And yet — speaking of disingenuous — it’s time the Spanish-only crowd in America stop acting like they don’t play a role in this muddle, too.
Let me be very clear: for the reasons I just mentioned, I do not endorse Trump’s efforts to make English America’s official language. Nor do I think immigrants should be bound, legally or otherwise, to learn English unless legal circumstances require it.
Pero por favor. Come on. I’ve lived and worked in several Latin American countries, and if I had never bothered to learn Spanish, I'd have been pegged as an arrogant gringo — especially if I were an immigrant.
Meanwhile, countless immigrants who’ve lived for years on the U.S. mainland, from South Florida to East Los Angeles, are themselves shocked! to find that their failure, or unwillingness, to communicate with the other four-fifths of Americans can rub people the wrong way.
I understand that learning English can be a challenge for poorer migrants. They do deserve more help. But here in Miami, a lot of financially secure immigrants, documented and undocumented, consider it a point of pride that they can live the American dream without uttering an English sentence.
I disagree.
If it feels bigoted for non-Spanish-speaking football fans to demand English-only Super Bowl entertainment, it feels bad-mannered to expect that non-Spanish-speaking customers who wander into Hialeah or Doral speak Spanish.
In either case, it’s not cool. Or chévere.
