Alana Casanova-Burgess

Logan Paul, who boxes under the Puerto Rican flag, like the most offensive thing ever.

He's a very particular frog in that he is in danger of extinction because the places that he lives in Puerto Rico are being developed. I loved that symbol. Debí tirar más fotos, right? Like, I wish I had taken more pictures of my neighborhood, of my grandma, of my aunt, of my, you know. It's a complicated nostalgia because sometimes it's this gauzyness, right?

And I feel this, I think in the diaspora, we can often imagine Puerto Rico as like,

better than it is you know like a lot of that imagery the jibaro imagery right of the platanal of the plantains and of the you know this like romantic countryside you know when you're when you're away you forget about the blackouts you forget about the potholes it's such a relatable album and I think the more specific that he gets the more relatable the album is do you miss a thing you can't have back ever

He says, like, I want them to put on a song of mine the day that Hostos returns. And Hostos was a Puerto Rican independence activist.

Well, I'm talking to you from San Juan. And I think what's been happening in Puerto Rico has been happening for a really long time. There's been a housing crisis. There's been, I guess you could call it a brain drain. There's been just a lot of young people leaving the island. That's been happening since Maria, but it's been happening before that because there's been an austerity crisis here.

And in fact, there's even a generation called Generación de la Crisis, Hijes de la Crisis, right? Like children of the crisis. On the album, there's a track called Boquete, which means pothole. And that is because, you know, you drive around and there are so many potholes. The electricity goes out all the time, right?

There was, I think people probably saw in the news, New Year's Eve, there was an island-wide blackout that lasted for some communities several days. There's just this sense of abandonment by the government. that kind of wants to invite people from the U.S.

and from abroad to enjoy tax incentives here so that they can move here, not really contribute financially to the island, and that that displaces people who are from here. And so that Debí Tirar Más Fotos, there are several references on the album to leaving, right, to like, being gone. And there's like a romantic sense to it. But it also is really about what is happening to PR today.

You know, it's interesting to think also about when the album came out, which is the Eve Vifera of Reyes, Three Kings Day. So Puerto Rico has just like the longest and most intense Christmas period in the world.

Absolutely. And so I don't think the release date of this album is accidental. There's also this instrument called the cuatro, which is kind of a guitar, but not. And so that's played in the mountains a lot. And you hear that in this album. So I hear all of that. That's very Puerto Rican.

And so, you know, even as he's like celebrating Puerto Rican-ness, and I think at this point, like probably this is a good time to talk about Jibaros. Mm-hmm. So a jíbaro is a figure, like a Puerto Rican mountain person peasant, except peasant has this, I think, sort of negative connotation. Right.

But a jíbaro is someone who wears a straw hat, who holds a machete, who works in the plantations often. Right. That imagery, that symbolism has been used historically in Puerto Rico to sort of describe like a quintessential Puerto Rican-ness. This is what Puerto Rican culture is, you know, almost like our cowboy.

Mm.

Who has particular values, very traditional, very of the earth, you know. And there are some people who I think rightly also cringe at that imagery because it is so... old school because it doesn't leave a lot of room for things like reggaeton, for blackness. In the same way that cowboy is limited, jibaro is limited. It's also been a symbol that's been used politically in Puerto Rico. Yes.

And also visually, you know, he put out this short film that takes place in a platanal, which is a plantain plantation. You know, so when Karina was mentioning earlier, this like fleeing the plantation or return to the plantation, that's part of the jibaro aesthetic. Right.

And so I don't think Bad Bunny is giving us answers or and I don't even know if these are the questions that he's intending to pose. He's a very intentional artist. But the questions that I come out of the album with are like, well, what do we imagine Puerto Rican culture to be? Is it the jibaro? What's the jibaro in 2025?

You know, and and, you know, in the same way that like, what does a cowboy do for us?

He came in second, which is unheard of. Sounds very notable. And Bad Bunny also endorsed him, like came out very clearly and also encouraged young people to get their election card to register to vote.

Coming up. Here, the political parties are organized around status.

Mm. Mm. Mm.

All right. So we were just talking about him endorsing an independence candidate. And what's important about that is that here, the political parties are organized around status.

And the independence party in Puerto Rico has been so attacked and suppressed for so long, not only by the United States, but also by other political parties here. The other two being one that's pro-statehood and one that's pro-status quo, colonial status. And so I think what you hear in the states is, oh, why couldn't Puerto Rico be a state?

Assuming that that's a liberal position. However, the statehood party here is very conservative. And, you know, it's complicated. There are shades of that, but that's what's happening here. And it did not escape anybody's notice that Bad Bunny not only was endorsing an independence candidate in this election, but also he showed up to vote in a light blue shirt and

People know what the Puerto Rican flag looks like, probably, because Puerto Ricans, we can never stop waving it. But there are actually several, right? And some Americans don't know this. So the one that you see most often in the States probably is like one that has the blue of the U.S. flag, like that kind of navy darker blue.

Yeah. That one is sort of like pro-statehood or pro-Commonwealth status. Interesting. There's another flag, which is the blue is light blue in the triangle. And that one is pro-independence. And so when you see like a light blue flag, you know that that is someone who wants independence. And it comes from a different flag, which is La Bandera de Lares, which also has that light blue.

The original Puerto Rican flag. Wow, I didn't know that. Bad Bunny makes reference to La Bandera de Azul Clarito in La Mudanza. He says, like, the day that I die, I don't want them to forget my face. And I want them to put on a song of mine the day that Hostos returns. And on the coffin, a flag, a light blue flag. So, like, very openly talking about independence, but also making a reference.

It's very like a historical Easter egg. You know, I think he's inviting people who don't know who Hostos is to Google and And Hostos was a Puerto Rican independence activist.

And Hostos died in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. And he's buried there. And he said that he did not want to be buried in Puerto Rico until it was a free country. So what Benito is doing in that line is sort of imagining like a day that Hostos could be buried here.