Column: Why Bad Bunny’s Grammy win matters so much

Bad Bunny winning the Album of the Year award at the Grammys for “Debí Tomar Más Fotos” matters so much because it represents the battles Latinos had to fight in this nation to celebrate our language and our culture.

Even though Spanish is also another European language that was imposed on Native Americans throughout the “New World,” it has become part of our culture, interwoven with native languages to make it our own. 

Puerto Rico has a rich history of making the Spanish language their own, from the pronunciation to the usage of particular words. As a Puerto Rican, Bad Bunny has proudly expanded its culture to the world. 

With this win, Bad Bunny has shown the world Puerto Rico is as much a part of the U.S. as any other state or territory. Y en Puerto Rico se habla español. (In Puerto Rico, they speak Spanish.)

The winning album starts with a song named “NUEVAYol,” which is New York spelled in the way that Puerto Ricans say the name of the most multicultural city in the United States, if not the world. It’s an intentional spelling; it represents Puerto Rico in its sounds as well as its lyrics. 

For Bad Bunny, this album includes more of the island’s rich musical history. While some of his previous works were more focused on reggaetón, he included bomba, jíbaro, plena and salsa. The songs also have dembow, bolero, cha-cha-chá, reggae, dancehall, bossa nova, rumba, bachata, merengue, hip-hop, soul and more. In other words, he took elements from all of Latin America and the world to create a tapestry to represent himself, his island of Puerto Rico and his nationality, which is American. 

It’s also a rejection of the current administration’s incessant need to erase Spanish, and Spanish speakers, from the nation’s history. 

On the first day President Donald Trump took office, the White House website deleted its Spanish version. Other government departments followed suit after that. This isn’t the first time that the government has tried to erase Spanish and its Spanish-speaking residents. 

In the 1930s, school districts in Arizona, Texas and California classified Spanish-speaking students as “slow” or “intellectually inferior.” Spanish-speaking students were spanked for speaking Spanish. 

In the U.S., speaking Spanish is seen as inferior to English. Even though being bilingual is usually an asset in the workforce, speaking Spanish is still controversial because of the community that speaks it.   

California eliminated bilingual education for decades until 2016. In the 1800s, the state had an English-only law, which was ended in 1967 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan.  

That’s why Bad Bunny’s win isn’t just for him. As he covered his eyes, processing his win, he knew he was carrying years of Spanish language erasure on his back. His win is a demonstration of resistance against the ongoing attacks on our language and our culture. 

“A todos los latinos en el mundo entero y todos los artistas que estuvieron antes y que merecieron estar en esta tarima recogiendo este premio.” (To all the Latinos around the world and all the artists who came before and deserved to be on this stage receiving this award).

No matter how much the current administration or its supporters may want to eliminate Spanish from the nation’s lexicon, Bad Bunny’s win is on the record. 

“I wanna dedicate this award to all the people that had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dream,” Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio said. “Para todas las personas que han perdido un ser querido y aun así han tenido que seguir adelante y continuar con mucha fuerza, este premio es para ustedes.” (To all the people who have lost a loved one and yet have had to move forward and continue with great strength, this award is for you.)

He dedicated his win to immigrants in pursuit of their dreams. What’s more American than that?