Bad Bunny turned the field into Puerto Rico during the Super Bowl 60th halftime show Feb. 8, delivering a performance that felt less like a concert and more like a cultural statement. The setting matched the themes of his most recent album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which translates to “I should have taken more photos.” The project centers on nostalgia, gentrification and colonization, which are all ideas that shaped the show’s significance.

After the performance, I sat with my mom to talk about what we watched. She was raised in Puerto Rico and moved to the United States during her junior year of high school. My family settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts, also known as, “The City of Immigrants,” where Dominican and Puerto Rican culture fills the streets. She raised me there, in what essentially felt like a mini version of the islands.

We talked about the cultural references and how we each felt represented in different ways. Not everyone watching the Super Bowl caught those details though, so here’s a breakdown of what some viewers may have missed.

The show started with a man playing the guitar while standing in a field. He was wearing a “pava,” the straw hat traditionally worn by jibaros, or Puerto Rican farmers. The hat represents the island’s rural and working class roots. Dancers were dressed as farmers cutting cane in a sugar cane field. The scene paid homage to Puerto Rico’s agricultural past while also acknowledging the colonial history and labor that built the island’s economy.

The set also included “la casita,” a small home filled with Latino celebrities such as Dominican rapper Cardi B, Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, Colombian singer Karol G and Mexican-American actress Jessica Alba. It felt like a family gathering Latinos know too well – loud, colorful and full of different identities all under one roof.

Other references were made about more everyday scenes. A group of men played dominos, a staple of Puerto Rican social life. The game is more than entertainment; it’s a ritual played on front porches, in parks and outside corner stores. Growing up in Lawrence, I remember the older men setting up tables in the park once the weather warmed up, playing for hours while sipping Presidente beer.

That sense of neighborhood life continued across the stage. There were bodegas, barbershops, nail salons, construction sites, piragua stands and jewelry vendors. All popular businesses within the culture. Anyone who has driven down Broadway St. in Lawrence would recognize the scene instantly with rows of salons, barbershops and bodegas before you even turn onto Essex Street.

Bad Bunny also paid tribute to reggaeton, the music genre that originated in Puerto Rico. The performance included references to the classics like “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee, “Dale Don Dale” by Don Omar and “Pa’ Que Retozen” by Tego Calderon.

“These people were the pioneers of reggaeton,” my mom said. “They opened up reggaeton to the world. So [Bad Bunny] was giving them that honor.”

Dancers performed “perreo,” the grinding, high-energy dance style associated with reggaeton. It was a reminder of the genre’s roots and how it grew from underground clubs to the Super Bowl field.

The performance also featured the “sapo concho,” the endangered Puerto Rican crested toad that serves as the DTMF album’s mascot. The animal represents native identity and survival, mirroring concerns about the displacement of local culture and residents.

During Lady Gaga’s salsa rendition of “Die With a Smile,” the band used traditional instruments like maracas, conga drums and the “guiro.” Gaga wore a red hibiscus, Puerto Rico’s national flower, on her dress. It was a small detail, but one that carried cultural weight.

One of the most relatable moments came during the wedding segment, where a child was shown sleeping across a row of chairs. Hispanic parties are known for running late, and there’s always at least one kid asleep on a pile of coats in another room or on top of chairs while the music keeps going. Though the wedding was in fact real, it would not be an authentic event without a random child sleeping anywhere they can. I was always that kid, so I felt seen.

Later, the performance shifted to a New York-style neighborhood set during “Nuevayol,” complete with a bodega, barbershop and Toñita’s Caribbean Social Club. She started a movement in the Bronx and made a Caribbean social club to keep the traditions. They’d drink, play dominos and socialize.

Ricky Martin’s segment carried some of the show’s strongest symbolism. It opened with a musician, a “planero” playing the “cuatro,” a traditional four-string instrument, as he performed “plena,” one of Puerto Rico’s oldest folk styles. The moment highlighted the tradition before shifting to the Puerto Rican icon.

Martin, best known for “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” helped bring Latin-pop into the American mainstream. He sat on the white chairs from the “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” album cover, surrounded by greenery and plantains that recreated a Puerto Rican setting. During the segment, he sang the anti-gentrification lyrics from “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” warning about displacement and cultural loss.

The lights flickered, referencing the island’s fragile power grid and the months-long outages after Hurricane Maria. I remember my mom posting on Facebook, terrified because she could not reach her mother in Puerto Rico. Eventually, a military service member saw the post and checked on my abuela.

Near the end of the show, Bad Bunny held up a Puerto Rican flag. But did you notice it was a light-blue triangle instead of the darker shade commonly used by the government? The lighter blue is historically associated with independence movements and resistance to colonial rule.

After the show, my mom told me how it made her feel.

“I felt very represented. It was very powerful and very emotional. I’m so proud of being Puerto Rican,” she said. “Seeing the pleneros playing plena music, which is our cultural music and how he just really put it all together, was, dare I say, overwhelming,”

She added that the performance gave her hope considering our current political climate.

At the end of the performance, a crowd paraded through the field, waving flags from across the Americas as Bad Bunny held up a football that read, “Together we are America.” The message was simple: America is more than just the United States.

And as the parade continued, one last phrase appeared on the jumbotron: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

It felt like a closing statement, not just for the show, but for the people it represented. For Puerto Ricans on the island and in the diaspora, the message was clear. Despite colonization, hurricanes, blackouts, migration and political debates about identity, the culture is still alive.

“Seguimo’ aqui.” We’re still here.