Photo via Teen Vogue
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Over 137 million live viewers tuned in across the nation to watch Puerto Rico’s biggest musician, Benito Antonio “Bad Bunny” Martínez Ocasio, transform the Super Bowl LX halftime show into a Latin American cultural extravaganza, during which pioneer of U.S. Latin pop, Ricky Martin, stepped into the spotlight to deliver a heartfelt performance of Bad Bunny’s Lo que le pasó a Hawáii on America’s largest stage.“Thеy want to take my river and my beach too. They want my neighborhood and grandma to leave…I don’t want them to do to you what happened to Hawaii.”
While Martin’s powerful halftime ballad evoked a sense of power and energy, Bad Bunny’s studio version of the song is somber and much more indicative of the pain Puerto Rico has faced: The wistful vocals describe the cultural colonization at the hands of the American tourism industry over a soft, Jíbaro-style instrumental as iconic sounds of the streets Puerto Rico echo throughout the track. The song itself came to Ocasio in a dream, where he said he awoke at 3 am to promptly jot the lyrics down in his Notes app. His vocals are dramatically cut off mid-verse, symbolizing the island-wide blackouts that have plagued Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria. The entire song’s composition allows it to serve as an ideological centerpiece both for Bunny’s latest album and, more broadly, the entire Puerto Rican fight for self-preservation.
The song’s title alone is already doing more political work than most halftime shows ever attempt, offering a critical lens with which to analyze the tragedies that befall America’s indigenous island subjects from across the Caribbean to the Pacific. “What happened to Hawaii” is not a nostalgic phrase or a scenic reference. As Hawaiʻi Public Radio noted when the song was released, it is a warning that Puerto Rico must not “end up like” Hawaiʻi, a warning about displacement, overtourism, and the long afterlife of the colonization that is rooted in the two islands’ shared history of struggle. To take that title seriously is to ask a larger question than halftime commentary usually allows: what, exactly, has the American empire done to the places it claims as paradise?
What Happened to Hawaiʻi
What happened to Hawaiʻi began not with tourism brochures, but rather centuries of political history and turmoil. The independent Kingdom of Hawaii was formed in 1795, following the unification of the islands by tribal chiefs. This made the nation unique at the time, as it was one of the only independent, indigenous-led kingdoms in the world. The United States had yet to exert any major influence on the islands until Christian missionaries arrived in 1820 to “civilize” and “purify” what they viewed as heathenism in the New World. Missionary influence and the arrival of new white settlers establishing their presence on the islands drew the attention of American Businessmen to the profitable, untapped sugar-cultivation market in Hawaiian land. By 1870, these settlers formed the “Big Five” sugar companies: Ladd & Company, H. Hackfeld & Company, C. Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, and Alexander & Baldwin, that dominated the market.
The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 gave Hawaiian sugar favorable access to U.S. markets, and as a result, their sugar revenue more than tripled from $1.3 million in 1876 to $4.3 million in 1880. In 1887, using their newfound wealth and power, a militia led by white plantation owners and businessmen forced the King of Hawaii to sign a new constitution that rewrote Hawaiian politics and law to favor them. They introduced a property requirement for voting, which effectively disenfranchised the majority of Hawaiians and immigrant laborers while favoring the wealthier white elite. When Queen Liliʻuokalani tried to restore Hawaiian political authority in 1893, a larger coup led by the same U.S. businessmen and backed by U.S. Marines completely overthrew her, making her the last queen of Hawaii.
Wanting to remain sovereign, the 1897 anti-annexation petition received 21,269 Native signatures: more than half of the entire Native Hawaiian population counted that year. Annexation nevertheless occurred the following year through a congressional resolution, making it officially U.S. property. Ultimately, Hawaii was not peacefully brought into the United States, but taken through a combination of private economic interests, military backing, and legal maneuvering. Congress acknowledged this 100 years later, after 34 years of Hawaiian statehood, through a 1993 resolution that recognized the “illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii”, which resulted in the “suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people,” as well as apologized for America’s role in depriving Hawaiians of self-determination. Resistance is essential to this story of history, as it prevents Hawaii’s annexation from being narrated as natural, inevitable, or welcomed. Indigenous people’s resistance makes it clear that Native Hawaiians consistently opposed both the political overthrow and the transfer of sovereignty. The Apology Resolution reinforces that point by clarifying that Native Hawaiians never directly relinquished their claims to inherent sovereignty over their people or national lands.
Hawaii Today
The modern indigenous life is what gives Bad Bunny’s warning its force. Hawaii’s housing crisis has culminated in Native Hawaiians making up 20% of Hawaii’s population, but 40% of its unhoused population, making them overrepresented in homelessness, poverty, and incarceration. Local indigenous people are being pushed out of Hawaii as billionaires and mainland capital come in to buy up their land. Housing Prices have skyrocketed, as million-dollar skyscrapers are erected and luxury resorts constructed while native islanders are priced out, struggling to afford single-bedroom homes. As a result, more Hawaiians now live in the mainland USA than in the Hawaiian Islands. Of the locals who are left, their children have spoken native ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻian less and less across generations, as the indigenous tongues and cultures they carry are replaced in schools and institutions. The ideal of “paradise” for the American tourist has been prioritized over native Hawaiian interests, resulting in the displacement of indigenous people, the replacement of traditional neighborhoods with resorts, and the erosion of Hawaiian culture.
Puerto Rico
Sitting over on the opposite coast of the Americas, the island of Puerto Rico caught the attention of American imperial interests during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Unlike the independent kingdom of Hawaii, Puerto Rico had been living under nearly 4 centuries of Spanish rule, dating back to Columbus’s arrival in 1493. Puerto Ricans had only just won a limited form of autonomy by the end of the Spanish-American War, as Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States, a transfer from one empire to another. The island became absorbed by the United States, neither a full part of the U.S. nor an independent country. This ambiguity was intentional, as it enabled the U.S. to benefit from its strategic location and shape its economy without granting its people any political power. The island and its people were merely possessions of the U.S. government. The 1917 Jones-Shafroth Act granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship but failed to end the colonial relationship, as these citizens could be governed, taxed, and conscripted by the U.S. but lacked a voice in presidential elections or Congress. To this day, the lack of sovereignty native Puerto Ricans have over their island has been a fight they refuse to give up on.
Modern-day Puerto Rico has begun to fall prey to the same gentrified fate as its sister islands of Hawaii, which saw their land purloined and culture written over. The controversial Act 60 is a Puerto Rican tax law that allowed export businesses that moved to the island to have a “corporate tax rate of just 4%, compared to the 21% federal corporate rate.” Qualifying U.S. mainlanders who move to the island receive a “zero percent tax on capital gains accrued after establishing residency and a complete tax exemption on interest and dividends.” This absurd tax break meant that corporations no longer needed to contribute nearly as much to Puerto Rico’s tax revenue, and wealthy U.S. citizens could buy a house in Puerto Rico and live essentially tax-free.
American millionaires like Logan Paul have flocked to the island, where he’s bought a $32.5 million mansion and pays very minimal income tax back to P.R. These rich mainlanders have come in and are buying up entire city blocks and neighborhoods, transforming people’s homes into lucrative Airbnbs for tourists. As a consequence, the price of Puerto Rican housing has gone up, and native islanders can no longer afford to live in the places they were raised. Moreover, Puerto Rico law states that all of the island’s beaches are public, and any developments built must retain free public access to all shores. But the construction of luxury condominiums has seen beach accesses illegally fenced off and reserved only for paying tourists, sparking mass protests from islanders.
The exploitative strategies seen in Puerto Rico are exactly the same as the ones employed in Hawai’i: The U.S. takes control of the island, fails to give its people self-determination, and eventually commodities its native land and culture, driving out the original inhabitants to create a paradise for mainland tourists. Hawaii and Puerto Rico are sisters in their struggles, a message Bad Bunny delivers directly to the whole world during his halftime performance. His lyrics spell out that “What happened to Hawaii” must not only be made known nationwide, but also prevented from happening right now in his home, Puerto Rico. He draws upon the real struggles of his people. “You hear the jíbaro crying, another one who’s left. He didn’t want to leave for Orlando, but thе corrupt ones pushed him out.”
Just like in Hawaii, the indigenous people have been priced out of their own homes, while wealthy mainlanders move in. “They want my neighborhood and your kids to leave.”
Even political pressure has favored the displacement and erasure of Puerto Ricans, with their previous governor and his advisors joking, “I saw the future. It’s so wonderful, there are no Puerto Ricans.” Nevertheless, throughout the centuries of persecution, the two islands shaped by the American empire have endured, and their people have yet to give up. Benito sings “No, don’t let go of the flag or forget the lelolai,” as people across Puerto Rico remain proud of both their nationality, even when flying their flag became a crime, as well as their deep indigenous culture, with musical customs like the Le Lo Lai echoing throughout their songs. With so many Puerto Ricans continuing to stand strong and resist mass gentrification and cultural erasure, hope still remains that luxury American gentrification won’t do to them what happened to Hawaii.
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This article was edited by Abigail D’Angelo.
Sarah Olivia Sullivan 
Nadia Garriga 
Maahi Kumar