How Bad Bunny impacted PRIME’s ABUELITA by Nathan Yungerberg

Puerto Rico is a having a moment—a well-deserved one. Thanks to Bad Bunny’s lush and energetic half-time show at the Super Bowl, Americans are being reintroduced to their sibling, Puerto Rico -- in prime time. Which is ironic because Puerto Rico, while not a state, is an unincorporated territory of the United States, or as it’s officially designated — a commonwealth. People born in Puerto Rico have been U.S. citizens since 1917 and don’t require a passport to enter the U.S.

For Puerto Ricans, watching the half-time show was also a moment (and for some, a movement), not only of pride in their country of origin, but also a feeling that they are being seen in their full splendor for the first time by the rest of the country. A friend of mine flew halfway across the country to celebrate Bad Bunny’s performance with her sister and aunts. Growing up Puerto Rican in the Midwest, she said, always made her feel like she was less than, somehow lacking in what it meant to be a true U.S. American.

While there have been popular Puerto Rican singers before Bad Bunny, his refusal to jam his culture and music into the conventional standard of the U.S. music industry is making him both a hero and a threat to people who want to put America first without realizing who America is.

A couple of years ago when PRIME started working with playwright Nathan Yungerberg on his play, ABUELITA, we had no idea how ripe the timing would be when we finally parted the curtains on his story set in Spanish Harlem during a NYC heatwave. One of the play’s abuelitas, which means grandmother in Spanish, is a white woman from Iowa who takes her mixed-race grandson, Jesús, to New York City to learn about his father’s Puerto Rican roots. His mother has just died, and he knows nothing of his Nuyorican father, who he’s never met. (Nuyorican is the term used for the vibrant community of Puerto Ricans who made their new home in New York City.)

The two Iowans are welcomed into Spanish Harlem by three older Nuyorican women, an acerbic teen and a charismatic gay man. Sitting on a stoop trying to beat the heat, the seven people tackle their generational and cultural differences with humor, pathos and transformation.

Both the Bad Bunny controversy and ABUELITA by Nathan Yungerberg are moments to embrace the entirety of America at its best. Accepting immigrants and embracing differences are the cornerstone of America. After all, we want to be the America where everyone’s culture is welcomed, embraced, and celebrated.