February 2nd, 2020: A Night to Remember
The NFL’s LIV Super Bowl happened twenty-two days ago, and I still can’t manage to stop thinking about it. Am I a football fan? Yes. Am I a proud Latina who is starstruck after finally getting some much-needed recognition in one of the biggest show stages of the United States? Yes. Is this the best thing to have ever happened to me? Oh yes.
Since I can remember, I’ve been watching NFL games. The NFL is big in Panama, which is weird because it is considered the ultimate American sport. However, the league has found its way into the hearts of my fellow Panamanians, and it has stayed there. On this year’s Super Bowl Pepsi Half-Time show, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez (JLo) performed as the prominent headliners in Miami, the mecca for Latinidad in the United States.
As a Panamanian Latina, going to Miami feels like going back home every time. Everything is warm there. From the people to the weather, you can feel the heat of familiarity in your skin. It only made perfect sense to celebrate Latinidad with two Latinas headlining the Super Bowl in this amazing Latino city. When I first heard they were up for performing during the halftime show, I couldn’t believe it. In my head, it was going to be either really good or really bad because historically, I’ve never seen any Latinos perform in the halftime show. In my thoughts, mixing up the routine with a bit of Latino flair was going to be too much for the conservatives in the United States. I was more afraid of what insensitive people who hate our ethnicity would say or do rather than paying attention to the fact that the performance was finally a dignified musical representation of my ethnicity. The thing is that for so long Latinos have been sided as just harmful stereotypes such as the undignified inmigrant, the Latino robber or the maid and the dangers of those stories are that we are so vulnerable to them since we see them from such a young age that we start to believe them. There is no glorification of Latinos ever, just damnification and for us to see these two queens up there in arguably America’s most American event ever is a slap of reality that we are getting recognized as we should.
So, why am I getting all fussed up about these two performings? Well, besides the point that their performance was amazing, it thrills me to see people who represent my ethnicity anywhere. You see, as a Latina, in college, I’ve felt more than ever a necessity to categorize myself as something. I can’t say that I am Panamanian because people mostly don’t know where it is. I can’t say I’m Latina because people don’t believe me. Apparently, I don’t “look” the part. And I can’t say I’m Hispanic because it makes me personally uncomfortable to narrow myself down to identifying myself as a person who speaks a language. All of these identities are kind of problematic and, at the same time, all unified under the term Latina. However, being a Latina is not something that one identifies as a race but more as of an understood culture among us.
At the same time, what being Latina means to me may totally differ from what the next Latino thinks. But the music, the language, the expressions, the livelihood, in conclusion, our culture makes us feel alive in the same way. So although I can’t pinpoint exactly the similarities between Shakira, JLo, and me (except the fact that we dance Spanish and dance really well), I can say that what connects me to them is seeing my culture represented. This connection happened during the Half Time show in a variety of ways; the appearance of the Puerto Rican sister flag, seeing Shakira dance Champeta, listening to the familiar Latino beats, watching them Salsa dance! I could go on and on. Even though I try to put it down in words to convey my emotions when watching this, I still can’t manage to express how full my heart and teary-eyes felt when watching that 15-minute performance. To that, I say thank you.
February 2nd, 2020, was a night to remember. I dare to say in a few years it’d be easier for me to remember who sang in the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show than to remember who played in it.
