Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at PSU chapter.

If you have not seen the Grammy’s, please go find CBS on demand or online, and go watch it. If you don’t have a few hours, just watch the opening number, so you could understand what I’m talking about.

The opening number of the Grammy’s 2019.

Artists: Camila Cabello, J Balvin, Ricky Martin, Arturo, Ty Dolla $ign, wow. The mixture of Cuban, Puerto Rican, Colombian, African American. Listen, that opening performance was more important than you could imagine. It was a night to remember for the Latinx community worldwide.

Camila performed her hit single from her first solo album, “Havana”, alongside rapper Ty Dolla $ign and other artists with the feel of what it is like to live in a home where all family members live in one room. Dancers in vibrant colors were on stage, alongside Instagram comedian Lejuan James.

After her performance, Camila tweeted, “Tonight’s performance was based on my grandma’s childhood in Havana growing up in a “solar habanero”, basically a house in which every family live in a room- it was a poor community but she loved it because there was music everywhere, she was never happier #Grammys

But, that wasn’t just the significance of the performance. This performance shows how important it is to represent the Latinx community. We don’t see representation like this in Hollywood, music, everywhere for that matter. We grow up watching artists like Britney Spears, Justin Bieber (if you’re in your teens/early twenties) and more.

Yes, we have artists like Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, but it is 2019 and representing different cultures in the media is more important now than it ever was. If you’re a minority, events like this means more to us than it does to someone who isn’t a minority. The diversity in media is important. Representation matters more and more every day for future generations to feel like they’re wanted in society.

With that being said, let us thank those performers and all who were involved with this performance, for bringing the Latinx community together and feeling like our culture is respected and represented. It was beautiful and powerful and very much needed.

"For me, being American-Latina means identifying with and being influenced by both my American upbringing and my Latin heritage, and I have so much appreciation for how those two cultures have created who I am." - Camila Mendes I'm a Junior, Broadcast Journalism major with a minor in Spanish; I'm very vocal and active in the Latinx community at Penn State and believe everyone's voice should be heard! Todo es pa' la cultura!
Aisha is currently a senior at Penn State University, studying Telecommunications in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. She is a contributing writer and Campus Correspondent for Her Campus Penn State and her hobbies are reading, listening to music, and watching hockey. Originally hailing from Jakarta, Indonesia, her dream for the future is to someday be part of the book publishing industry, digital marketing or work on a media team for a sports team.