“Por America Unida:” a vision for our continent based on a culture of encounter
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was an entertainment performance loaded with a powerful political message. As an upstate New Yorker I know how the show might rub some members of our dominant culture the wrong way, I get it. I am not surprised that Trump and MAGA branded the show as “terrible” and called it a “slap in the face” to Americans. It is very unfortunate that this performance divided many viewers along partisan lines but there was a strong message that needed to be said. As an immigrant social worker from an immigrant family as well as a social ethicist and historian I felt that the performance offered an amazing message that Latinos, all immigrants, progressives, and moderates need to embrace. The message was to believe in a vision for an authentically united America.
The halftime show reminded me of the movie “Motorcycle Diaries” with Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Cerna. It’s one of those lesser known biographical movies that is brilliantly developed in that it captures the heart of the viewer and challenges him/her to reflect on social issues and their own contextual reality. Like the halftime show this movie also delivered a similar, and equally powerful, message.
The movie was about an actual motorcycle trip that took place in 1952 that medical school friends Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado took throughout Latin America on their way to intern at a leper colony in Peru. Their trip included going through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and then flying to Miami before heading back to Buenos Aires. At the end of their internship Guevara offers this toast, a toast that reflects all he witnessed on their motorcycle trip.
We believe, and this journey has only confirmed this belief, that the division of America into unstable and illusory nations is a complete fiction. We are one single mestizo race, from Mexico to the straits of Magellan. And so, in an attempt to free ourselves from narrow-minded provincialism, I propose a toast to Peru, and to a United America.
The story we hear in this movie is of a journey that two friends made where they encountered so many different people and so many experiences of injustice that they were irrevocably transformed. They saw how interrelated the plights of the oppressed were and at the same time how interconnected we all truly are, if we allowed ourselves to grow beyond our parochial identities.
It is interesting to note that at the end of that toast, as Guevara shares his deep conviction for an “America Unida,” Granada, his traveling companion, looks upon his friend with a deep sense of concern. No doubt he recognizes his own transformation in the midst of the encounters they had, but he knows that the same transformation has deeply affected his friend’s sense of justice and purpose. Neither of them will ever be the same, but for Guevara this conversion will give him a sense of purpose that will demand the ultimate sacrifice. Granada will continue looking at his friend with this same concern even as he witnesses the body of his revolutionary friend “El Che” being flown back to Cuba after his assassination in Bolivia.
As Guevara journals about his travel and encounters after he travels to Miami he reflects on what happened as a result of this pilgrimage.
This isn’t a tale of heroic feats, it’s about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams. Was our view too narrow, too biased, too hasty? Were are conclusions to rigid? Maybe. Wandering around our America has changed me more than I thought. I am not me anymore, at least I am not the same me I was.
Here is a sentiment that I need to reflect on and I think most of us should take the time to consider, are our views to biased? are our conclusions to rigid? This is how the experience of encounters can transform us, by forcing us to check our narrow biases and conclusions. This is what the culture of encounter is all about. The ability to enter the cultural and social reality of the other in order to grow and be transformed as a person who can truly empathize with the other. Guevara and Bad Bunny see the interconnectedness of immigrants and workers, the desire to embrace one’s dignity and to struggle in solidarity with one another. They share a vision for a united America, an America where all people can celebrate their culture and yet be part of a unified American Dream.
And this is precisely the message, the political undertone, in Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga’s performance. It was brilliantly delivered and wonderfully choreographed so that the message, a counter-cultural message, could touch the hearts of all of us who deep down share in this vision and believe it to be at the heart of the American Dream, a dream that exist beyond the confines of any one nation, a dream that belong to the cosmic race that encompasses all of humanity.
Borrowing Guevara’s vision Bad Bunny goes on to offer his own version of an America Unida towards the end of his performance.
God bless America, sea Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Panama Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Republica Dominicana, Jamaica, Haiti, Antilla, United States, Canada, and my motherland, mi barrio, Puerto Rico. Seguimos aquí.
To all those who react negatively to this performance because it raises a culture that is not perceived as traditional for North American, please watch with an openness towards an encounter with another culture, another American culture that has coexisted with us throughout the history of our American experience.
As for the Latino community, I want to raise the wisdom that Pope Francis expressed when he spoke to us directly from Philadelphia during his 2015 American visit when he said:
I ask you not to forget that, like those who came here before you, you bring many gifts to this nation. Please, you should never be ashamed of your traditions. Do not forget the lessons you learned from your elders, which are something you can bring to enrich the life of this American land. I repeat, do not be ashamed of what is part of you, your life blood. You are also called to be responsible citizens, and to contribute fruitfully – as those who came before you did with such fortitude – to the life of the communities in which you live. I think in particular of the vibrant faith which so many of you possess, the deep sense of family life and all those other values which you have inherited. By contributing your gifts, you will not only find your place here, you will help to renew society from within. Do not forget what took place here over two centuries ago. Do not forget that Declaration which proclaimed that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that governments exist in order to protect and defend those rights.
Bad Bunny, a Latino Catholic, has done his part to renew our society from a nationalistic fever that sickens our great country. This sickness threatens to kill the great dream that has brought immigrants into our country during its 250 year history. Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo, suggests that our cultural diversity provides the remedy America needs to keep the dream alive. The rest of us need to stop limiting our own story and embrace the great gift of our cultural tradition. This is what will truly make America great again.
