When the Center Shifts: Bad Bunny and the Politics of Cultural Power, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. April 30, 2026

When the Center Shifts: Bad Bunny and the Politics of Cultural Power

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

April 30, 2026

Bad Bunny’s Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show performance

united music fans around the world, according to real-time listening data from Apple Music and Shazam.

What does it mean for Latinas and Latinos to “win” the culture war? Not perform it. Not survive it. Not even just contest it. But win it—at a time when immigrants are under renewed political attack, when curriculum battles rage across states like Texas, and when the very meaning of belonging is once again being contested.

The answer came into sharp, unmistakable focus in that unforgettable cultural moment when Bad Bunny took center stage in a spectacle as massive and symbolically loaded as the Super Bowl.

What unfolded was not simply a performance—it was a cultural intervention at scale. An estimated 128.2 million viewers watched live in the United States alone, with the performance generating over 4.1 billion views globally within 24 hours across broadcast, streaming, and social media platforms (Brown, 2026; PR Newswire, 2026). This was not marginal visibility. This was mass presence—a re-centering of language, sound, and identity before one of the largest audiences in the world, without translation, dilution, or apology.

And it was deeply personal.

You could feel it—not as branding, not as choreography, but as conviction. This was not an artist accommodating an audience. This was an artist bringing his full world with him, insisting that the audience meet him there. Spanish was not a flourish; it was the foundation. Puerto Rico was not a reference; it was the frame. The performance did not ask for inclusion. It assumed presence.

That is what winning looks like.

But this moment also reveals something deeper. For generations, Latina/os have been cast through a narrow and racialized script—criminal, foreign, disposable. These narratives were not accidental; they were produced through institutions that controlled what stories could be told and how. Film, television, journalism, and publishing have long functioned as gatekeeping structures that shape public perception and, in turn, public policy. When a community is consistently misrepresented, it becomes easier to marginalize it politically, economically, and socially.

Culture, in this sense, governs. It shapes what feels legitimate, who is perceived as belonging, and which policies are seen as reasonable or necessary. It prepares the ground on which law and policy take hold.

This is why moments like Bad Bunny’s matter so profoundly. They do not simply “represent” Latina/os; they reconfigure the terms of representation itself. They shift the center. They expand what is legible, audible, and possible. They interrupt the long-standing assumption that Latina/o/x/e identity must be translated, softened, or made palatable to be accepted. More than visibility, this is a form of epistemic power—the authority to define reality rather than be defined by it.

But we must be clear: this kind of moment does not emerge out of nowhere. It is the result of years of refusal, experimentation, and risk. It is built on the insistence that one’s language, one’s rhythms, one’s histories are not obstacles to success—but the very source of it.

That insistence is political.

If we understand culture as a site of power, then “winning” the culture war requires more than visibility. It requires control over the production of meaning. It means moving from being objects of representation to being authors of narrative. It means asking not only who is on the screen, but who is behind the camera, who is writing the script, who is financing the project, and who ultimately decides what stories get told.

And this is where the analysis must turn to structure.

Latinas/os cannot rely on institutions that have historically excluded them to suddenly tell their stories with nuance and care. Change requires pressure—organized, sustained, strategic. It requires building alternative platforms while also demanding accountability from existing ones. It requires recognizing that culture industries respond to economic and reputational forces, and leveraging that reality to push for transformation. This is the work of building cultural sovereignty—not just inclusion within existing systems, but the capacity to shape them.

And this is where the analysis must also turn inward.

As a people, this requires more than visibility—it demands a deeper reckoning with who we are and how we show up for one another. Our diversity is not incidental; it is foundational. We are Indigenous, Afro-Latina/o, Afro-Indigenous, Caribbean, Central and South American, immigrant and U.S.-born, multilingual, multiracial, and multigenerational. 

We also name ourselves in ways that reflect history, place, and struggle: Mexican, Mexican American, Chicana/o, Tejana/o, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Nuyorican, Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Brazilian, and more. We are also gender diverse, encompassing women, men, nonbinary, queer, and trans communities whose experiences and leadership have long been central to our survival and resistance.

These identities are not interchangeable, nor are they reducible to a single narrative. They carry distinct histories of migration, colonization, dispossession, resilience, and creativity. This is not a complexity to be managed or simplified for public consumption—it is a source of intellectual, cultural, and political strength. And yet, it is too often flattened, sanitized, or erased in ways that limit how we are seen—and how we come to see ourselves.

We are American.

We are not uninteresting. We have never been.

At the same time, we must confront a harder truth: there is no path to transforming cultural power without transforming ourselves. Colorism, anti-Blackness, and the persistent marginalization of Indigenous, Afro-Latina/o, and Afro-Indigenous voices are not peripheral issues—they are central to how power operates within our own communities. 

Consider, for example, how lighter-skinned Latina/os continue to dominate media representation, while Afro-Latina/o and Indigenous voices remain underrepresented or erased. Left unaddressed, these dynamics replicate the very logics of exclusion we seek to dismantle. A politics of representation that elevates only the most palatable, light-skinned, or culturally assimilated among us is not transformation—it is tokenization, fostering an illusion of inclusion.

If we are serious about reshaping the narrative, then we must be equally serious about building a cultural and political project that is explicitly anti-racist, anti-colonial, decolonial, and accountable to those most historically erased—particularly within our own ranks.

Winning, then, is not simply about being seen. It is about who among us gets seen, and how.

Bad Bunny’s rise—and moments like that Super Bowl performance—also remind us of something else: the power of imagination. When communities are consistently erased or distorted, their ability to imagine themselves differently is constrained. Cultural production—music, art, storytelling—is not ornamental. It is foundational. It shapes what people believe is possible, who belongs, and what futures can be envisioned.

That is why these moments resonate so deeply. They do not just entertain; they expand the horizon of the imaginable.

And yet, even as we celebrate them, we must resist the temptation to treat them as endpoints. They are not. They are openings—evidence of what becomes possible when the rules are broken, when the center shifts, when the story is reclaimed.

This brings us directly to Texas.

In Texas, where battles over education, curriculum, immigration, and public life continue to intensify, the stakes of this cultural struggle are especially clear. The fight over curriculum—what is taught, whose histories are included, whose knowledge is valued—is inseparable from the broader struggle over narrative power. Whether in the revision of social studies standards, attacks on ethnic studies, or policies that reshape access to higher education, we see again and again how narrative frames policy, and policy structures possibility.

This is why the question of “winning” matters.

Latinas/os will not win the culture war by asking to be included in someone else’s story. We will not win by translating ourselves into frameworks that were never designed for us. And we will not win by mistaking visibility for power.

We win by reshaping the story itself—by insisting that our languages, our histories, our cultures, and our communities are not peripheral, but central. We win by building and controlling the platforms through which meaning is produced. We win by confronting internal inequities even as we challenge external ones. And we win by refusing to separate culture from the broader structures of power that govern our lives.

What Bad Bunny showed us on that stage was not just performance.

Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images

It was posture.

A posture of refusal. Of affirmation. Of unapologetic presence.

And perhaps most importantly, a posture that said:

We are not asking to be part of the story.

We are here to rewrite it.

And we can rewrite it—centered in our own stories and in solidarity with broader struggles for justice that extend beyond us.

In doing so, we help open space for a future that is more just, more truthful, and more fully shared.

Because the story that comes next should belong to us all.

References

Brown, M. (2026, February 10). Super Bowl LX viewership second highest all-time; Bad Bunny has 128.2M viewers. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2026/02/10/super-bowl-lx-viewership-second-highest-all-time-bad-bunny-has-1282m-viewers/

PR Newswire. (2026, February 10). Bad Bunny sets global viewership record for most-watched Apple Music Super Bowl halftime show performance of all time, reaching 4.157 billion views. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bad-bunny-sets-global-viewership-record-for-most-watched-apple-music-super-bowl-halftime-show-performance-of-all-time-reaching-4-157-billion-views-302701639.html 

Bad Bunny Knows the Truth. Do We? by Julian Vasquez-Heilig | December 2, 2025

Friends:

I encourage everyone to read this excellent and clarifying piece by Dr. Julian Vasquez-Heilig. It is essential reading in this moment. He reminds us that when scholars write about colonialism—including the ongoing colonial condition of Puerto Rico—they are not speaking metaphorically. Colonialism is not rhetorical flourish. It is a material history of conquest, land dispossession, racial hierarchy, economic extraction, political subordination, and epistemic control. It structures governance, shapes citizenship, and defines whose knowledge is legitimized and whose is subordinated.

When Mexican American and Latina/o Studies scholars analyze colonialism in Texas, the Southwest, or Puerto Rico, they are not engaging in abstraction. They are naming concrete histories of annexation, treaty violations, segregation, linguistic suppression, and policy regimes that continue to shape lived experience. To dismiss or sideline that scholarship is not an academic disagreement—it is a refusal to confront the structural foundations of the present. 

Colonialism is not a metaphor. It is a living architecture of power, and scholarship that names it performs a public service that universities should defend—not suppress. Unless, of course, the university itself is operating within the very colonial logic Dr. Vasquez-Heilig describes: disciplining knowledge, privileging Eurocentric canons, and policing which histories are allowed institutional authority. At that point, the silencing—as we are evidencing right now with respect to our Ethnic Studies Departments at UT Austin—is no longer ironic. It is confirmation.

-Angela Valenzuela

Bad Bunny Knows the Truth. Do We?

by Julian Vasquez-Heilig | December 2, 2025

Most people in the continental United States do not understand why coloniality remains an urgent issue in Puerto Rico. They recognize the island through images of beaches and Bad Bunny, but they rarely understand its political reality. What is colonially? Puerto Rico remains an unincorporated territory of the United States, a status created by early twentieth century Supreme Court decisions. These decisions placed Puerto Rico in a category that allowed federal control without granting full rights to the people who live there.

People born in Puerto Rico are United States citizens, yet they cannot vote for the president unless they leave the island. They also have no voting representation in Congress, although Congress has unilateral power over Puerto Rico’s laws, economy, and governance. Federal agencies and congressional bodies can impose decisions that reshape every public institution on the island. This includes education, where policy decisions frequently arrive without local electoral accountability.

This political structure reveals why coloniality is not a metaphor in Puerto Rico. It defines the island’s daily reality. The absence of democratic representation means that Puerto Rican communities do not have full control over their island. Decisions are often dictated rather than deliberated, which purposefully places enormous strain on its residents. These realities formed the foundation of Patricia Virella’s 2025 Mistifer Lecture and shaped the urgency of her message.

Opening the Conversation

The 2025 Mistifer Lecture, delivered in San Juan by Dr. Patricia Virella of Montclair State University, was one of the most historically grounded and future oriented presentations I have heard in many years. The lecture insisted that education cannot be understood apart from the political structures that control it. Virella opened by reminding the audience that schools are not isolated from systems of power. They reflect the ideologies and histories that surround them.

She asked a set of questions that framed the emotional and intellectual trajectory of her talk. She asked the audience what they would have done if they lived during historical periods of explicit colonial brutality. She asked whether they would have resisted or remained silent. Virella drew the audience in by refusing to allow distance between past and present. She invited everyone to consider courage not as an abstract concept but as something that reveals itself through daily decisions. The questions created a moral framework that guided the rest of the lecture. They reminded the audience that historical analysis is incomplete without present day context.

Julian Vasquez Heilig and Patricia Virella after her lecture
Puerto Rico as Case and Mirror

Virella emphasized that Puerto Rico is both a case study and a mirror. She explained that Puerto Rico’s educational history is inseparable from the broader history of colonial administration in the United States. The island’s schools were used to impose cultural, linguistic, and political assimilation beginning in the early twentieth century. These practices were not accidental or misguided. They were intentional efforts to restructure identity and align communities with external American authority.

She challenged the audience to see Puerto Rico not as an exception but as a site where the true nature of American governance becomes visible. The island reveals how the United States has historically exercised power over populations without granting full democratic rights. This reality creates a mirror that reflects patterns still present in the mainland. It forces educators to confront the possibility that colonial logic appears everywhere in the democratic project.

Her framing made the room eerily quiet because it revealed the stakes of education. She explained that schools do not merely reproduce knowledge. They reproduce systems of power unless leaders make intentional choices to disrupt that cycle. Puerto Rico became a lens for understanding how power shapes schooling in ways that are both explicit and subtle.
Education as Freedom Work

Virella opened her slides with Monique Morris’s declaration that “Education is freedom work.” She explained that this statement carries significant weight in Puerto Rico because public schooling has long been used to shape political identity. She reminded the audience that when schooling is used to impose identity, it becomes an instrument of control rather than liberation. That tension has defined Puerto Rican education for more than one hundred years.

She displayed a 1902 Puerto Rico Herald headline that described the U.S. Commissioner of Education as the “absolute king” of the island’s schools. The article listed practices designed to break cultural continuity, including military style marching and forced recitation of patriotic songs. The policy also encouraged teachers to degrade the Spanish language in order to elevate English. These practices were not hidden or subtle. They were publicly declared objectives of the colonial administration.

The room grew tense as Virella explained that these policies were part of a larger strategy to reshape Puerto Rican identity through schooling. The audience confronted evidence that coloniality within education has always been deliberate in the United States. Virella’s point became unmistakably clear. Education may be freedom work, but only when communities have authority over their own stories.

Coloniality as a Living Structure

Virella repeated that coloniality is not an artifact. It is a living structure that continues to shape schools today. She described coloniality as a system of governance that creates dependence on external authorities while undermining local capacity. She showed how this structure appears in curriculum mandates, school closures, teacher evaluation systems, and policy reforms imposed from outside of communities. These patterns reveal how control operates through institutions rather than only through overt political statements.

She explained that contemporary reforms in Puerto Rico must be understood within this historical context. Policies framed as modernization often reproduce long standing beliefs about Puerto Rican incapacity. These policies assume that communities cannot govern themselves and therefore require external intervention. Virella made clear that such assumptions are rooted in colonial logic that treats Puerto Ricans as subjects rather than citizens.

Puerto Rico is No Joke: A response to the racist remarks made by Tony Hinchcliffe

Friends:

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe has created a firestorm after telling a hugely offensive racist joke about Puerto Rico that that has appropriately and expectedly enraged Puerto Ricans. According to this NBC news article by Nicole Acevedo and Ignacio Torres, this has brought to mind just how incompetently Trump's handled the devastating impacts of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico all of which has sparked outrage and disgust by the Puerto Rican community.

The Trump campaign is trying to walk this back but the cat is out of the bag.  I'm not seeing how the press is covering the Latino community at large on this matter, but as a Latina and Mexican American myself, I similarly feel a deep sense of anger, rage, and disgust. 

I've been to Puerto Rico. It's a beautiful island its people are affable, generous, and kind. I offer you more context for the gut-level response against this toxic racism, opposing not just Hinchcliffe, but Trump's campaign and Trump himself using racism as a way to stoke an irrational fear of Black and Brown people and immigrants in his race for the presidency. Clearly, both Trump and his running mate, Vance, think that this is a good strategy. 

The backlash we are seeing now suggests that there are limits. 

After all, recent Census data indicate that over 5.8 million Puerto Ricans live in the U.S. and many of them in swing states. Remember, as well, that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Fingers crossed that this parlays into a flexing of not just the Puerto Rican community's political power, but the Latino community, in general, with Latinas and Latinos determining who the next president of our nation will be.


You can view Hinchcliffe's comments in the video below. I also encourage you to read this article from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in Hunter College, New York that responds to Hinchcliffe's racist remarks.

-Angela Valenzuela

A response to the racist remarks made by Tony Hinchcliffe

October 28, 2024

Protestor holding up a sign with the Puerto Rican flag on it that reads “Puerto Rico is no Joke – Want to Laugh – Burn Your Own” at a protest in response to the Seinfeld episode titled “The Puerto Rican Day” which aired on May 7, 1998. Carlos Ortiz Collection. Puerto Rican protest: CaOr_b21_f13_0004. Center for Puerto Rican Studies Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY.

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College condemns the racist, demeaning, ignorant, and grossly offensive remarks made by Tony Hinchcliffe during the campaign rally for Trump at Madison Square Garden yesterday afternoon. 

As Puerto Ricans, we know our influence and contributions are inseparable from the cultural fabric of the United States. Moreover, we assert that our value as a people both in the Archipelago and across the international Diaspora extends beyond our relationship with the United States. Referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the ocean” speaks to the willful ignorance of the conditions facing Puerto Rico this very moment and for the last 126 years under US colonial rule. This comment raises deep concerns about the type of persons who may influence policy over Puerto Rico and its inhabitants. Historic and ongoing forms of  colonialism continue to shape the history of Puerto Rico and the everyday lives of Puerto Ricans. Since 1898 , failed US policies have resulted in over a century of violent occupation, exploitation, disenfranchisement, dispossession, and oppression. Austerity policies and failed government initiatives are responsible for creating disastrous conditions and exacerbating them each day as the healthcare industry, education system, and basic infrastructure continue to crumble.

CENTRO finds the application of the stereotype that Latinos “love making babies” to be egregious, degrading, and insensitive. For decades, African-Americans, Indigenous people, and Puerto Ricans specifically, have served as a playground for eugenics and scientific experimentation. Puerto Rico has often been mischaracterized as suffering from overpopulation  and the methods to address this supposed issue of overpopulation included the mass sterilization of Puerto Rican women and using poor Puerto Rican women as subjects for birth control trials without informed consent. Puerto Ricans have often been the subject of eugenic practices and rhetoric resulting in lifelong trauma, permanent bodily harm, and death. 

A photograph of women protesting the forced sterilization of women, with signs that read “Sterilization Abuses Women” and “Stop Sterilization!” and “Health Care For All!” José E. Velázquez Papers. Women Protesting Forced Sterilization: JoEV_b07_f07_0003. Center for Puerto Rican Studies Library & Archives, Hunter College, CUNY.

As advocates of free speech, academic freedom, and freedom of expression, CENTRO deeply understands the need to prevent censorship across the public square, academia, college campuses, the arts, and the press. However, to take a national stage for the US Presidential race and utilize it to make light of imperialist wars, refugee crises in Latin America, and to spew racist rhetoric about multiple racial/ethnic groups is dangerous and harmful. 

While Trump’s campaign has distanced itself from Tony Hinchcliffe’s remarks in a statement, saying “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” we demand that Trump condemn this characterization of Puerto Rico. Moreover, we demand that Trump explain what his position is on Puerto Rico, and what his policy priorities are for this U.S. territory, the home of more than 3 million U.S. citizens. We also call for the Republican Party at the national and state levels to clarify what their positions are on Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in the United States.

Since our founding in 1973, CENTRO has remained the largest university-based research institute, library, and archive dedicated to the Puerto Rican experience in the United States precisely for the continued mischaracterization and ignorance that exists in the United States about Puerto Rico, its people, their history and their trajectory. On Saturday, October 26th, our television show Puerto Rican Voices won two New York Emmy Awards for our investigative documentaries examining the current conditions facing Puerto Rico. Over five episodes we covered the privatization of the power grid, the legacy of Tito Matos, the collapse of communities in Fajardo reliant on the ferry service, the effects of the AES coal plant on the environment and local community, and increased gentrification due to exploitative tax laws. This is all the context needed to understand the gravity of such disgraceful comments by Tony Hinchcliffe. 

Love for Puerto Rico does not come from vacationing in an AirBnB that likely displaced a Puerto Rican family or a hotel that unlawfully blocks public access to the beach. Love for Puerto Rico  is deeply rooted in a collective struggle, the ongoing fight for self-determination, a shared unique culture, and a lifelong commitment to the true meaning of community – whether showing up at the polls to vote or taking to the streets to make our voices heard. 

As of the 2023 United States Census estimates, there are over 5.8 million Puerto Ricans living in the United States including key battleground states like Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Our Data Hub’s new voting tool dashboard showcases the citizen-voting age population for Puerto Ricans and other selected populations in the United States across all 50 states. This tool can be used as a resource to see the potential Puerto Ricans, Hispanics, and other selected racial and ethnic groups may have as a voting group, based on its share of the citizen, voting-age population.

Puerto Rican Heritage Month starts November 1st and Election Day is next Tuesday, November 5th, in both the United States and Puerto Rico. We highly encourage all eligible voters to make a plan and exercise your right to vote: ¡BORICUA: TU VOTO ES PODER! If you live within the United States, you can find information about voting locations and your voting rights here. If you live in Puerto Rico, you can find information about voting locations and your voting rights here. 

Hostile Takeover Attempt of LULAC — Sept. 2-3, 2022 Updates

LULAC is under attack, my friends. As posted previously, National LULAC experienced an attempted coup at its national convention on the island of Puerto Rico on July 30, 2022. My husband and I were there and witnessed this. It was no fun watching our 93-year-old civil rights organization with deep roots in Texas poised on the precipice of impending harm, possibly irreparable, had the Puerto Rican leadership associated with the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP) taken over. We're still not out of the woods.

Doing my best to keep folks updated as this is an evolving situation. I've combined three posts in one. All were written by Bernardo Uresti, Editor of the subscriber-only blog, the VOICE OF THE MAINLAND. 

The obvious problem is that, however unfortunate, a divided national office impacts the whole.

Beginning with the Texas Dream Act (House Bill 1403) on which Rep. Domingo Garcia led as a legislator in the Texas House—that is now the Federal DREAM Act—I, and so many others, have worked closely with him since 2001. He is an honest and honorable man and easily the most progressive leader LULAC has had in a good long while.

I should add that I have been a LULAC member for over 30 years and presently co-chair with Dr. Theresa Montaño its national Higher Education Committee on which my husband, Dr. Emilio Zamora—along with 15 other members—also serves. Our work continues regardless as there are pressing policy issues at hand in education that don't go away however embattled our organization. Thanks to President Garcia for representing well our interests as an organization and for fighting the good fight. 

May peace, justice, and a brighter future for LULAC prevail.

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., Member

LULAC Council #4721, District VII

Related Readings: TRO & Whistleblower Account/Signed Affidavit

LULAC Was Served A Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), Averting a Hostile Takeover by Members of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP)

 

Signed Affidavit: Eye-opening and Shocking Detail of the Behind-The-Scenes Politics in National LULAC

 

Sept. 2, 2022

Dear LULAC Familia,

As you know from my recent communications, the health and future of LULAC is under threat because of an ongoing attempt at a hostile takeover by individuals who have created hundreds of unlawful local councils. This attempted takeover is nothing short of an effort to undermine LULAC’s core mission of protecting the voting rights and ensuring social justice for all of LULAC’s members – something we have been doing for nearly a century. This is an existential threat. As National President of LULAC, I have had to devote much of my time and attention to fending off this takeover. These efforts have included dealing with a restraining order from a Texas court that prevented an unlawful election from occurring at last July’s national convention in Puerto Rico. These efforts also include stepped up efforts on my part to supervise and manage the operations of LULAC, including attempting to oversee our financial operations and supervise the performance of our Chief Executive Officer, which are key parts of my job description.

Unfortunately, I have faced multiple internal obstacles in my attempts to protect the health and future of LULAC, including resistance from our CEO to obtaining information necessary to evaluate her job performance and also basic financial information that is fundamental to our operations, and that would shed additional light on the origins of the hostile takeover. Because of this resistance and for additional operational reasons, I recently visited LULAC’s offices in Washington, D.C. for the purpose of temporarily suspending the CEO for her insubordination and multiple allegations of misuse of her office, and to obtain financial and other information that I am clearly entitled to as President of the organization. I was accompanied by our former National President, two highly respected female LULAC leaders. To my surprise, when we attempted to enter LULAC’s offices on the second day of our visit, the CEO prevented us from entering, even going so far as attempting to enlist the police in her effort. As a result, the CEO obstructed us from obtaining the information that, as President, I must have to monitor the operations of our beloved organization.

If that were not enough, as many of you likely have read in social media, after our attempted visit to LULAC’s Washington, D.C. offices, the CEO initiated an “anti-stalking” proceeding against me personally in a local trial court, claiming that I had engaged in intimidating and threatening behavior toward her. She did not notify me that she had initiated the proceeding and did not give me the opportunity even to respond to the highly inaccurate affidavit she submitted to the court. Contrary to the suggestions in her affidavit, I never even spoke with the CEO during my visit to the Washington, D.C. offices and did absolutely nothing that any reasonable person could construe to be a threat or any form of intimidation. These facts are fully corroborated by the three LULAC representatives who accompanied me on that visit. plus video and witness testimony. However, based on the CEO’s inaccurate affidavit and without any notice to me or opportunity to respond, the trial court entered a temporary anti-stalking order. A full hearing on that order will take place on September 8, 2022, which will finally allow me to respond to the CEO’s false statements and to defend myself against her completely unjustified claims. I will not allow her to smear the good name and reputation of our beloved LULAC, in addition to myself.

I ask for your patience and trust and promise that LULAC will survive this attempt to undermine the causes of voting rights, economic opportunity, and social justice that have defined us for nearly a century. We will not let that happen, and I need your support. Please stand up for LULAC and let others know we are united as we have been for 93 years to protect our community. Please help us ensure that LULAC continues to represent the millions of Latinos across the United States. There can be no room for compromise on our principles; together, we will win justice.

Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or comments that you wish to share with me. I respect you, and you have my word we will be successful in protecting and saving LULAC.

¡Hasta la Victoria!

Domingo

Domingo Garcia, LULAC National President

_______________________________________________________________________

This was Not a Good Week for the PNP: Former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez charged with bribery, according to US DOJ

More news out of Puerto Rico. Instead of an attempted coup of LULAC by members of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP; i.e., the Republican Party of Puerto Rico), this time around it involves a member named Wanda Vázquez Garced who served as Governor of Puerto Rico from August, 2019 through January, 2021.

According to this piece, sometime during this time period, Vasquez Garced was part of a bribery scheme involving the owner of an international bank and his associate, who happened to be a former FBI agent. Go figure.

Continuing, these individuals provided $300,000.00 in funding for Vázquez’s gubernatorial campaign "in exchange for her replacing the island’s top bank regulator with one of their choosing." This bank owner sought to thwart an investigation by a banking regulatory agency.

Such corruption. If convicted, this ex-governor and PNP member could do hard time. All told, this was not a good week for the PNP. I am glad to see these people brought to justice.

-Angela Valenzuela

Former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez charged with bribery, US Justice Department says

By Rafy Rivera, Melissa Alonso and Ray Sanchez, CNN

Updated 3:35 PM EDT, Thu August 4, 2022

Former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez

Former Puerto Rico governor Wanda Vázquez was arrested Thursday in San Juan on bribery charges connected to the financing of her 2020 campaign, the US Justice Department says.

Vázquez is the first former governor to face federal charges. And the political scandal is the latest to shake an island still recovering nearly five years after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria.

One of her attorneys, Peter John Porrata, told CNN Vazquez will plead not guilty to the charges. She was released on bond after a brief hearing Thursday.

“I am innocent and a great injustice has been committed, ” Vázquez told reporters after her release. “I have committed no crime.”

A onetime political consultant for Vázquez and the president of an international bank have pleaded guilty to participating in the bribery scheme, according to a DOJ statement.

A former FBI agent and the owner of the international bank that operated in San Juan also participated in the alleged scheme, federal officials say.

From December 2019 through June 2020, the 62-year-old former governor allegedly conspired in a scheme to finance her gubernatorial campaign, according to the DOJ.

Vázquez allegedly received more than $300,000 from two businessmen to finance political consultants during her campaign, Stephen Muldrow, US Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, told reporters Thursday.

Vazquez and others are charged with conspiracy, federal programs bribery and honest services wire fraud.

The ex-governor, who is named in three of seven counts in an indictment, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

“The alleged bribery scheme rose to the highest levels of the Puerto Rican government, threatening public trust in our electoral processes and institutions of governance,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said in a statement.

The bribes were allegedly paid in exchange for Vázquez making an appointment to the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions that benefited businessmen involved in the scheme, Muldrow said.

The indictment alleged the owner of the international bank and his consultant – the former FBI agent – agreed to provide funding for Vázquez’s campaign in exchange for her replacing the island’s top bank regulator with one of their choosing. At the time, the bank was the “subject of an examination” by the regulatory agency, federal prosecutors say.

Muldrow said the island’s current governor, who defeated Vázquez in an election, was not involved in the scheme.

A former Secretary of Justice, Vázquez served as governor of the US territory from 2019 to 2021. Her appointment came after disgraced former governor Ricardo Rosselló was forced to step down following islandwide protests against his government.

She became Secretary of Justice in January 2017 – with a mandate that included fighting corruption on the island – and was an ally of Rosselló.

In 2018, Vazquez came under fire for allegedly intervening on behalf of her daughter in a case stemming from a home theft. She faced charges of violating government ethics laws. But a judge later ruled there was insufficient evidence to arrest her.

Arrest affects ‘the confidence of our people’

Vázquez’s brief tenure as governor was contentious.

Her ties to the disgraced former governor brought scrutiny. Critics accused her of failing to open investigations against members of her own party, particularly Rosselló and his administration’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

In January 2020, Puerto Ricans poured onto the streets of San Juan calling for her resignation after Hurricane Maria supplies were found in a warehouse in the city of Ponce, more than two years after the storm.

Later that year, Puerto Rican officials confirmed Vásquez was being investigated for suspicion of mishandling resources meant to mitigate earthquake damage on the island.

Mayra Velez Serrano, a professor of political science at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, said Thursday that many people on the island were shocked at the arrest but not entirely surprised.

“That the former Justice Secretary … and ex-governor, who is married to a judge, that she was involved in anything like this and that she was arrested is still shocking,” Velez said. “This continues to undermine the public’s confidence in the political system and their politicians and the two main parties.”

Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, who was elected governor after defeating Vásquez in a primary election, said Thursday, “Under my administration there is zero tolerance for corruption.”

“Today we see once again that no one is above the law in Puerto Rico,” Pierluisi, a member of the same pro-commonwealth party as Vásquez, said in Spanish via Twitter.

The arrest “certainly affects and lacerates the confidence of our people,” the governor said.

“I reiterate that in my administration we will continue to have a common front with the federal authorities against anyone who commits an improper act,” said the governor.

“Wherever it comes from and whoever it may implicate, as well as promoting initiatives and following up on the bills that I have presented to combat corruption,” he said.

In 2019, Rosselló handpicked Pierluisi as his successor.

His short-lived tenure came to an end after just five days when Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court declared his governorship unconstitutional.

Vázquez was subsequently sworn in. “In light of the decision by the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, I must step aside and support the Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico,” Pierluisi had said in a statement at the time.

Pierluisi then won the election for the seat in November 2020.

LULAC Was Served A Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), Averting a Hostile Takeover by Members of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP)

Geez, what a week here in San Juan Puerto Rico! Our ancestors were surely crying out from their graves that LULAC is neither a partisan organization, nor is it up for sale.

What a terrible idea to seek to submit our organization to the rancorous politics over statehood in Puerto Rico.

Do read yesterday's post by journalist Suzanne Gamboa and the entirety of this message to gain a fuller understanding. The first is the message, including the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), that we all received this morning putting us on notice that the election had been stopped and the second is a more elaborate statement by LULAC President Domingo Garcia from this evening in both English and Spanish. 

The short of it is that yesterday evening's issuance of the TRO brought the election to a screeching halt and that election fraud will get investigated. 

Today is a proud day for National LULAC. 

Thanks to President Garcia and our LULAC leaders for their competent leadership and loyalty to our constitution in these troubled times. 

For now, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Dear LULAC Members in Puerto Rico,

 

LULAC was served tonight with a temporary restraining order (TRO) that enjoins or prevents us from having a national election in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Saturday, July 30, 2022. The members of the national board are named as defendants in the matter, and as such, any actions by them or anyone else that violates the TRO can and will have serious consequences up to and including monetary fines and jail time.

 

In light of this legal action, I am informing you that the national assembly meeting scheduled for Saturday, July 30, 2022, is in recess until the matter has been heard in court, as mandated by the TRO. You are advised not to go to the assembly hall as no lawful meeting is allowed. Please continue your visit and other travel plans while in San Juan, and I will keep you informed on the next steps in this matter.

 

Sincerely,

 

Domingo

Domingo Garcia, LULAC National President