Irina Popescu lives in Topsham.

I never thought I would anticipate any Super Bowl halftime show as much as Shakira and J-Lo’s in 2020. Usually, I like the Super Bowl just fine, mainly for my uncanny ability to eat too many spicy chicken wings, stay up late with my kids and yes, the funny commercials (if the San Francisco 49ers could ever make it into the game again then it would be a different story).

I never thought I would truly count down the days until millions of people, many polarized across this country, will watch Puerto Rican performer Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) sing his Spanish-only opus in a country that has become utterly inhospitable to everything and everyone who thinks, speaks and dreams in Spanish.

Moreover, Bad Bunny’s celebration of queer icons and intention to honor the queer community, while also promising to wear a dress during a part of the performance, fills me with hope. Latin Americanness and queerness. Two of the most persecuted identities within our current political climate, on stage for millions to witness and celebrate. Making this celebration visible in a country that has sought to asphyxiate these identities and cultures will be cathartic.

Many of us anticipate this performance as a hopeful ray in the second of month of 2026, which, just one month in, has already felt like a year.

I would like to tell 2026 to stop and let us catch our breaths. This past month has riddled us with feelings of instability, sadness, fear and terror. As an immigrant married to another immigrant, embedded within immigrant communities, I no longer feel safe and constantly worry for those around us. As someone who grew up in and now studies dictatorships, I recognize what is happening. I bear witness to it and choose to not look away.

I am impressed by the activism I have seen all around our state here in Maine, as well as the bravery of those in Minnesota and other states fighting for basic human rights. I am in awe of the many brave individuals who have risked their lives to fight for the rights of others.

I battle against impunity and hope that when time shifts, justice will prevail, as it does in most countries that have faced similar human rights atrocities. The incredible activism from these individuals inspires me to continue fighting, speaking out and doing what I can to support my communities.

I never thought I would value the NFL as an activist landscape. Even writing that sentence
makes me feel queasy, as if I am in a lucid dream trying to wake up. When did the NFL become so politicized? Perhaps the real question is, when did the Super Bowl become a space for activist hope?

The National Football League, traditionally a conservative leaning organization, was forced to change its tune quite drastically in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem (go Niners!). Kaepernick’s activist kneel protested the horrific treatment of people of color in the United States, and led to a shift in policy within other workplaces regarding workplace protests.

If the conservative culture of the NFL can shift to empower voices like Bad Bunny, and Green Day for the matter, to take stage in one of the most highly watched television events in the country, then there is hope for this shift to occur in other avenues as well. This hope is all we have to work toward.

I will admit (forgive me, Patriot fans) that I care very little about who wins the football game this year. Yet I do care greatly about the impact that an all-Spanish performance will have on a country at odds with itself.

The language app Duolingo dropped a new course, Bad Bunny 101, to get listeners prepared for the show with some basic Spanish knowledge. Making Spanish visible, heard, felt, danced to, is essential for this budding hope, for change.

When I read that the president claimed he will not attend the show or watch it, I could not help singing the refrain from one of my favorite Bad Bunny’s songs, “Yo visto así” (I dress like this): “Yo visto así, no me vo’ a cambiar, si no te gusta, no tienes que mirar” (I dress like this, I’m not going to change. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to look).