Why doesn’t Bad Bunny want Puerto Rico to become a state?

In “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAI’I,” meaning "what happened to Hawaiʻi,” Bad Bunny pleads for Puerto Rico not to end up like the Hawaiian Islands. 

Background: In 1895, the United States backed a coup by U.S. businessmen in the Kingdom of Hawai’i. The “territory” was converted into a state in 1959. By 1978, local publications were expressing alarm about soaring housing prices that continue to price out Native Hawaiians, who today are a minority there.

For many Puerto Ricans, U.S. annexation of Puerto Rico would economically marginalize us in our own archipelago, and steadily strip Puerto Rico of its own identity, history, culture and language.

Photo: Chris Pizello/Invision/AP

Watch to learn more about how Hawai’i was affected by U.S. colonialism.