By Brad Brooks
AURORA, Colorado, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, which celebrated Latino culture in Spanish, offered a moment of uplifting cultural pride for many Hispanic residents in Aurora, Colorado, where daily life has been reshaped by fears of immigration raids and deportations.
The diverse suburb of Denver has been targeted by US President Donald Trump. On the campaign trail and since returning to office, Trump has claimed that the city was taken over by Venezuelan gang members, an assertion that citizens and local leaders dispute.
Immigration raids have increased in the city of 403,000 people, where Latinos comprise more than 31% of the population. Many Latinos who live there, regardless of their immigration status, say they feel besieged, stigmatized and attacked.
In what feels like a dark time, a dozen Latino residents of Aurora said in interviews that Bad Bunny’s performance — which Trump labeled “an affront to the Greatness of America” — felt less like simple entertainment and more like a cultural lifeline of recognition, a brief moment of visibility and pride.
“The fear factor within the Hispanic community is definitely there – people with papers, people without papers. Many people are afraid to leave their homes, the morale of the community is very low,” said William Herrera, manager of Panaderia el Paisa, a popular bakery that is a neighborhood center.
“That’s why Bad Bunny’s show was so beautiful. For him to represent Hispanics on the biggest stage in America at a time when all the racists are trying to push us down, for him to deliver the message that love is stronger than hate, fills me with pride,” said Herrera. “He gave courage to the whole community.”
EMPHASIZE JOY
Residents say fear in the Hispanic community is keeping people inside. Some streets feel emptier, big birthday parties are less common and crowded backyard barbecues are now rare.
Across the United States, worries about immigration raids dominate daily conversations and cause Hispanics to be cautious about where they go, speak Spanish and be visible in their own neighborhoods.
At Mary Zuloaga’s beauty salon in Aurora, a TV tuned to the Spanish-language network Univision was showing clips of Bad Bunny’s show Tuesday as she reflected on its significance.
Born in Colombia, Zuloaga, who has been in the United States since the early 1980s, said the Latino community had lived through similar moments of anxiety, notably under former President Ronald Reagan, and saw how those fears negatively shaped behavior and collective identity.
She said that the climate under Trump is worse than the 1980s, and she fears that her language or appearance could cause her arrest and detention even though she is an American citizen.
For Zuloaga, Bad Bunny performing entirely in Spanish was crucial, despite criticism that doing so would alienate English-only speakers.
“He showed that the government can terrorize our community, but they can’t take our language,” Zuloaga said. “If we let them do that, then we have lost our identity.”
In the nearby Ollin Cafetzin café, where a library of 1,000 books on ethnic studies is open to all, training takes place for people who wish to observe immigration raids. The owners also work closely with immigrant and labor rights nonprofits to support undocumented people.
Coffee house co-owner Cynthia Moreno-Romero welcomed what she saw as resistance in Bad Bunny’s art.
Moreno-Romero said that his performance was parallel to the educational and social events that she organizes in her coffee shop.
“It is important for us at this time when fear seems to be the only thing we can hold on to, to really channel that fear into imagination and organization,” said Moreno-Romero. “It is important to emphasize the joy in these moments.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Aurora, Colorado; editing by Donna Bryson and Cynthia Osterman)