Antonio Navalón
Imagine the scene for a moment. The country that has turned immigration control into a political banner, that has made the border an emblem of sovereignty, and that, in Donald Trump’s second term as president, has toughened its rhetoric and practices toward Latinos, turns on its screens to watch the most-watched show of the year.
However, in this scenario where national identity, money, and political narrative intersect, what emerges is not the discourse of exclusion, but demographic evidence. The wall does not appear as a symbol; rather, Spanish and Latino culture appear as reality. The fantasy of “undoing” cultural mixing is not imposed; rather, it confirms that it is already integral to the United States.
What happened that night was not just entertainment. It was a symbolic confrontation between an official narrative—that of cleansing, deportation, and threat—and a social reality that cannot be erased. When that reality is broadcast in prime time to tens of millions of viewers, it ceases to be culture and becomes a political message.
With hindsight, one wonders how it is possible that, after strengthening the federal border and immigration control apparatus—with budgets that, in the case of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) alone, are around $19.8 billion in fiscal year 2025, and with budget packages that, taken together, place CBP and ICE at the center of the Department of Homeland Security’s operating expenses—the country ends up unintentionally celebrating itself as a country traversed by Latinos.
Because that was, in essence, what happened at the Super Bowl: the flagship event of American television, comparable only — in emotional density — to Thanksgiving. Nielsen recorded an average of nearly 125 million viewers and a peak of over 137 million; the halftime show, headlined by Bad Bunny, drew approximately 128 million viewers. This is not a minority watching from the outside. It is the country looking in the mirror.
Bad Bunny appeared on that stage, a U.S. citizen by birth, having been born in the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico, a territory that Washington administers with political ambiguity but with full legal consequences. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. What matters is the symbol: during his performance, Spanish and Latin American cultural codes took center stage in the country’s most important media ritual.
And that is uncomfortable precisely because it contradicts the increasingly repeated idea that history can be “cleansed” through police raids, deportations, and legal adjustments. It cannot. Spanish is now the second most spoken language in the United States, and the Hispanic/Latino population has reached 68 million (approximately 20% of the country) according to recent estimates. This data is not an argument: it is a structure that demonstrates an undeniable reality.
The debate on deportations also requires precision. Not all communications labeled “deportation” are the same: there are formal removals, returns, and voluntary departures, and each category is used politically. And the data is there: between January and October 2025, at least 200,000 Latin Americans were deported. At the same time, statements from the Department of Homeland Security have presented figures indicating “voluntary departures” and other concepts of “leaving the country.” In January of this year alone, an estimated 73,000 people were detained in ICE centers, the highest level ever recorded by DHS. These are not technicalities; they are evidence of a crisis that has surpassed reality.
The presence of Latino symbols at an event of this magnitude, therefore, is not folklore or a cosmetic concession. It is the confirmation of a structural fact: the economy, the labor market, consumption, sports, music, education, and politics are intimately intertwined with the Latino community. In swing states—Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona—their electoral weight is no longer merely important; it is and will be decisive in the run-up to the November elections.
Therefore, the question is not cultural. It is political and demographic. Is the United States really in a position to “do without” Latinos, as if they were an inconvenient or incompatible accessory? Does anyone really believe that the number of deportations can be scaled up to massive levels without fracturing productive sectors, without reorganizing entire cities, and without paying an electoral price?
Beyond the dispute between Republicans and Democrats, what is at stake is a dissonance between discourse and reality. Contemporary American identity is inseparable from cultural and social mixing. Denying this does not eliminate the phenomenon; it makes it more visible, more tense, and more political.
The effect of this contrast has yet to be measured. It remains to be seen how the Republican Party will process this, what interpretation the Democrats will try to impose, and, above all, what consequences it will have in a country that pretends not to be what it already is. Because when a nation refuses to recognize itself, it does not confront a minority; it confronts its own historical transformation.
And that leads to a final, inevitable question: if a Super Bowl halftime show already functions as a demographic mirror of the country, what will happen when, in a few months, a global event like the Soccer World Cup once again puts that diversity—without permission and without apology—center stage?
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