Join us for a Book Reading and Discussion with Professors and Authors Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, featuring selections from P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.

This event invites audiences into a conversation about Bad Bunny’s rise as a global cultural figure and how Puerto Rican music has long served as a space for joy, protest, and resistance.

Through readings and discussion, the authors place the book within a broader historical, political, and cultural context of Puerto Rican life. Short Bio: Vanessa Díaz is Associate Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University. She is a multimedia ethnographer and journalist whose work focuses on issues of race, gender, and labor in popular culture across the Americas.

Vanessa is author of the book Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood (Duke 2020) and director of the bilingual documentary film Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio (2006). She has written for such outlets as the Washington Post, USA Today, Latina, Rolling Stone and People magazine. Petra Rivera-Rideau is Associate Professor and Chair of American Studies at Wellesley College. Petra’s research explores race, popular music, Puerto Rico, and Latinx identities. She is the author of Remixing Reggaetón: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico and Fitness Fiesta! Selling Latinx Culture through Zumba, both with Duke University Press. She is co-editor of Afro-Latin@s in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas. She has also written for popular media outlets like LA Times, Washington Post, and Latina. She has served as a consultant on several reggaetón projects, including Bad Bunny’s 2023 Coachella headlining set. Together, Petra and Vanessa co-authored the book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke 2026) and co-created the Bad Bunny Syllabus Project. At LMU, Vanessa teaches the course “Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico” and at Wellesley, Petra teaches the course “Bad Bunny: Race, Gender, and Empire in Reggateón” which have both been featured in countless media outlets and were even discussed by Bad Bunny himself on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

SAVE THE DATE: SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 2026, AT 11 AM Books will be available for purchase For more info: info@nmprac.org