Latin American world leaders are chiming in on coronavirus — on Residente’s Instagram
With over five million followers on Instagram, Puerto Rican rapper and reggeaton singer René Perez Joglar has spent a chunk of his time in quarantine having exclusive conversations with Latin American leaders.
In between virtual concerts and chats with his son Milo, Perez Joglar, popularly known as Residente of the group Calle 13, has been hosting Q&A-style sit-downs with current and former presidents including Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Uruguay’s former President Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica.
In the virtual chats, Residente asked his high-ranked guests about their COVID-19 responses, the impact of missteps taken by the Trump administration and the state of their countries’ economies.
“My interest, personally, is to get to know you better, and for people as well who don’t know you ... and to have a pretty casual chat,” Perez Joglar told Salvadoran President Bukele in one of the virtual interviews.
“The pandemic to me, even though it’s one problem, it’s a global problem, it’s different in every country,” Perez Joglar said in one of the chats. “Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Argentina, Puerto Rico, they all have particularities that make them different, they all have to be resolved in similar ways, but with different approaches.”
Residente’s unapologetic style in his lyrics and concert speeches has often clashed with some who criticize his left-leaning politics in Puerto Rico and throughout Latin America. He is an open supporter of independence for Puerto Rico, and a vocal critic of U.S. involvement in Latin American countries.
Some of his critics invoke a moment during the 2009 MTV Awards, in which he wore a polemic t-shirt that said “Chavez nominated for Best Pop Artist,” referring to the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Last year, Residente said in a Facebook post he did not support Chávez’s policies.
In his new role as an interviewer, Residente’s guests have been highlighting the economic and public health disadvantages of Latin American and Caribbean nations as they work to curb the spread of the pandemic. Some rely on ventilators and protective equipment they can obtain from U.S. vendors. However, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recently blocked this equipment from entering their territories.
“The United States is doing too little,” Bukele said of the U.S. response. “Like they say in the U.S., too little, too late.”
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose Latino-heavy district emerged as having one of the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 infections in New York City, also joined the rapper last month for a virtual call as the only non-president guest. Ocasio-Cortez, who has been critical of the Trump administration’s treatment of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, said she believes the current pandemic has also exposed new challenges for the island.
As a U.S. territory, without the approval from the federal government, Puerto Rico’s Governor Wanda Vázquez did not have the authority to shut down the island’s airport, an early action taken by many Latin American countries that leaders believed could help decrease exposure to the respiratory illness. While Puerto Rico kept cruise ships from docking in San Juan, Ocasio-Cortez said the limitation exposed new challenges for the island.
“When it comes to Puerto Rico, [the pandemic] has only amplified the injustices of the colonial status of the island,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent. “People were excited about going on vacation without thinking about the disease they were bringing into the island.”
