Bad Bunny's Super Bowl manifesto, the Chinese dissident who became an ICE target and coloured chickens in Georgia
DISPATCH №52
Hello and welcome. Each week, Translator’s Dispatch brings you a curation of compelling stories beyond the Anglosphere.
This week, we begin in Latin America, where a Colombian newspaper gives its close reading of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl pop spectacle.
From a Chinese human rights publication, we follow the fate of a Chinese videographer facing deportation from the United States.
Finally, from Georgia, a fascinating investigation into how consumers looking for a supposedly natural yellow sheen on their chickens are being given ones with unregulated synthetic additives.
P.S. - We read your suggestions, and a lot of them have made it into this newsletter. Feel free to recommend stories we should summarise for our Dispatches, or translate in full for the magazine.
Here’s what we’re looking for and how to let us know.
A manifesto for Latino America
How a Colombian newspaper reported Bad Bunny’s historic Super Bowl performance
Last Sunday, Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl. In a country pushed to the limit with the persecution of migrants and anyone who is against the violent raids by ICE, a singer with an album mostly in Spanish, born in Puerto Rico – an “unincorporated territory” – of the United States, has headlined its biggest sports and music event.
In this context, it’s not surprising that the simple fact that Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl is itself historic.
But the analysis by Claudia Arango Holguin from El Colombiano goes further than most in explaining the messaging underneath such a spectacle and how it resonated with observers in Latin America: “It was a symbolic snapshot of what it means to be Latino”, she explains. And, as the article’s title suggests: “a manifesto”.
The Latino working class as a pillar of the US
In a quasi-cinematic sequence, Bad Bunny’s set begins in sugarcane fields, taking us deep into Puerto Rican history, from the time when the US took control of Puerto Rico in 1898, and US sugar corporations came to dominate its economy.
As Bad Bunny walks around, we catch glimpses of everyday life on the island: small businesses such as a nail salon, a taco stand, a barbershop, a gold shop, and a shaved ice cart, evoking Old San Juan, the island’s capital. Bad Bunny walks between two boxers, one of them Puerto Rico’s Xander Zayas. The article notes that the scenes convey a message about the Latino working class and how it has been forged in the history of the United States, alongside moments of Caribbean nostalgia, such as grandparents playing dominoes.
That longing feeling is reinforced when a little kid watches on TV Bad Bunny getting a Grammy, and the singer gives the award to him, “reminding us that we were all that kid once, dreaming big”, according to the production team behind the show.
Puerto Rico in all its fury
In the section “La Casita”, also an element of his current tour, we see a typical Puerto Rican house with a neighbourhood party in the garage. These gatherings are considered the birthplace of reggaeton in the 1980s and 1990s. For a brief moment, we hear a remix of classic reggaeton hits: a tribute to those “urban” artists who paved the way for the genre’s recognition.
A toad appears, the Sapo Concho, a species that has appeared in Bad Bunny’s album promo materials and has been listed as a Threatened Species since 2020. It’s native to the island and also serves as a cautionary tale about the richness of its biodiversity.
Later, on stage, Bad Bunny carries a Puerto Rico flag that had long been banned and suppressed. “That blue is the true shade of our flag,” a Puerto Rican friend tells the journalist from El Colombiano while they watch the show together. That exact flag design was banned by the United States from 1898 to 1957 for being considered a symbol of sedition, independence, and colonial resistance. Although permitted since 1957, its colour was darkened several shades to resemble the blue of the Stars and Stripes. “Another powerful message conveyed without words”, the author thinks.
When the surprise guest arrived, Lady Gaga performed her hit "Die with a Smile" to a salsa rendition with a band, wearing a dress in the same light blue shade as the flag, with a maga flower over her shoulder, the national symbol of the island.
In one of his more acclaimed songs, NUEVAYoL, singer Benito not only celebrates his Caribbean accent, mispronouncing the name New York, but mentions an icon that appears on stage: Toñita, the octogenarian owner of the Caribbean Social Club in Brooklyn, a venue that has created an essential space for the Nuyorican community.
Then, amidst banana groves, we see Ricky Martin rising from a plastic chair and singing a warning: “I don’t want them to do to you, what they did to Hawaii” (another US territory acquired at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, though one which subsequently became a state).
Two very political moments in Bad Bunny’s show
Bad Bunny sings El Apagón (The Blackout), climbing on a set of telegraph poles, a clear reference to the severe crisis in Puerto Rico’s electrical system, marked by frequent blackouts, outdated infrastructure, and a daily impact on residents’ quality of life. (And something which, the journalist suggests, the US government has neglected to address since Hurricane Maria all the way back in 2017).
In the end, Bad Bunny re-claims the famous God Bless America… but mentions each of the countries of America, the continent. In a divided society, the messages “Together we are America” and, behind him, on a giant screen, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” make a gesture of resistance or an alternative path from those who lead with hate.
As El Colombiano concludes: “In his defence of what it means to be Puerto Rican, and without mentioning President Donald Trump or ICE, he says more than an insult could have, and he did it with music, with symbols, with representation, with staging; and in Spanish”.
The original article, ‘Bad Bunny convirtió el Super Bowl en un manifiesto latino: el significado de cada símbolo de su show histórico’, by Claudia Arango Holguín, was published in Spanish in El Colombiano on 9 January 2026.
It is available here.
El Colombiano is a newspaper that has been published in Antioquia, Colombia, for over 100 years. They aim to be “the connection to building society”.
Summary by DV
When the whistleblower becomes the prisoner
How a Chinese videographer who documented Xinjiang’s detention facilities found himself facing deportation from the United States
It begins as a story of journalistic daring, and a dramatic escape. But it unfolds into something stranger: the story of a man who risked everything to document Chinese state repression in Xinjiang in eastern China who found himself detained in the country he fled to for protection.
In 2020, a young man from Henan province in northeastern China, identified here as Guan Heng, drove alone into Xinjiang with a long-lens camera. Over several days, he travelled between towns and remote compounds, cross-checking satellite coordinates published by international journalists with what he could see on the ground. The footage he gathered, later released online after his escape from China, would become part of a body of evidence used by reporters and researchers to verify the existence and scale of detention facilities targeting Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Fast forward to 2025: Guan Heng is in a New York state jail, held by US immigration authorities, facing possible deportation to China.
This article, published in December last year by the advocacy organisation China Human Rights, traces Guan’s journey from disillusioned observer to accidental whistleblower.
[In January this year, Guan Heng was granted asylum by a US judge and was subsequently released from US detention].
A curiosity that turned into a mission
Guan grew up in Henan and describes himself as someone who gradually became aware of censored chapters of Chinese history through online browsing. A 2019 motorcycle trip to Xinjiang first exposed him to the region’s pervasive surveillance: checkpoints, biometric scans, repeated hotel registrations. At the time, he says, he didn’t fully grasp what he was seeing.
The turning point came during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, when he read investigative reporting based on satellite imagery that suggested a vast network of detention sites. Having already travelled in the region, he felt compelled to return—this time to verify those locations himself.
He rented a DV camcorder with a long-focus lens rather than using personal equipment and prepared for the possibility of being searched. Over three days in October 2020, he visited sites flagged as suspicious. Some turned out to be ordinary facilities. Others – detention centres and compounds ringed with watchtowers and barbed wire – matched the descriptions circulating internationally. In one location at Ürümqi, he filmed large complexes with no clear public identification; in another, he captured footage of a facility with slogans about “laodong gaizao” (reform through labour) and “wenhua gaizao” (cultural transformation). Each stop carried risk. At one point, he feigned shopping at a nearby store to explain his presence near a guarded compound.
He completed the filming but quickly realised he could not safely release the footage from within China. Instead, he planned an exit.
A long escape
After months of waiting for travel restrictions to ease, Guan left China in mid-2021. He travelled through Hong Kong, Ecuador and the Bahamas, eventually setting out alone in a small inflatable boat toward Florida. He had no maritime experience and drifted at sea for nearly a day before reaching the US coast. Before departing, he scheduled his videos to be released automatically, unsure whether he would arrive safely.
The footage appeared online in October 2021 and quickly drew attention. International media outlets reported on it, and journalists involved in a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into Xinjiang cited the material as valuable ground-level corroboration of satellite findings. For a brief moment, Guan believed he had reached safety.
Instead, the backlash began almost immediately. Pro-government online commentators in China published personal details about him and his family. Relatives in China were questioned by security authorities. According to the article, several family members were summoned for interrogation, their phones searched and warnings issued. Guan himself, in the United States, withdrew from public attention as online harassment mounted.
Detention in the United States
He applied for asylum in New York and received a work permit, supporting himself through driving and trucking jobs. In 2025, after moving to upstate New York, his life took another turn. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrived at his shared residence while pursuing an unrelated investigation into his roommates. When officers learned that he had entered the United States by sea without inspection, he was detained.
Despite a pending asylum application and legal work authorisation, he was transferred between facilities and eventually placed in a county jail to await his immigration hearing. The article emphasises the irony: a man whose footage helped expose alleged abuses in Xinjiang subsequently facing the prospect of being returned to the country he fled.
A wider story
China Human Rights frames the case as emblematic of the precarious position of dissidents and whistleblowers who flee authoritarian systems but find themselves entangled in immigration enforcement elsewhere. Guan’s situation, the article suggests, illustrates how legal status can override context: his mode of entry into the United States was treated as a violation regardless of his asylum claim or the risks he would face if he were returned.
Experiencing this loss of freedom in the US, Guan reflects, has deepened his empathy for those he filmed in Xinjiang. Though Guan’s case was subsequently resolved, and he was released from custody, the article leaves hanging a difficult question: how countries that present themselves as havens for freedom handle those who arrive in search of it?
The original source article by Atlas Luk (陆经纬), ‘拍摄维吾尔集中营的人，要在美国争取自己的自由’ was first published in Simplified Chinese bv Human Rights in China (中國人權) on 12 December 2025.
It is available here.
Human Rights in China (HRIC) is a nongovernmental organization founded in March 1989 by overseas Chinese students and scientists. Its mission is to support and strengthen domestic civil society actors through the advancement of international
Summary by KLT
The yellow secret of Georgian chicken
How unregulated synthetic additives are used to artificially yellow chickens in Georgia
In a sprawling investigation for Radio Tavisupleba, the Georgian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, journalist Giorgi Mgeladze uncovers a widespread food fraud hiding in plain sight in Georgia’s poultry markets.
The story begins in a kitchen in Tbilisi. Nino, a schoolteacher, was preparing dinner when something strange happened in her stockpot. As the water simmered, her supposedly “farm-fresh” chicken began to lose its golden tan, while the broth turned an unnatural shade of yellow.
Earlier that day, Nino had deliberately chosen a hen with yellowish skin. In Georgia, yellow is widely considered the most desirable colour for chicken. Conventional wisdom holds that yellow-skinned birds are healthier, meatier, and raised on natural feed such as corn, which contains carotene, the organic compound responsible for yellow and orange pigmentation in plants and animals.
Poultry dealers, Mgeladze reports, have learned to exploit this belief. Instead of relying on natural feed, they spike chicken feed with synthetic colour-shifting additives. After a few weeks, pale birds take on a convincing yellow hue. What consumers believe to be organic, farm-to-table poultry is often, in reality, chemically altered.
According to Radio Tavisupleba, these artificial colourants are imported from China and are exempt from food-safety regulations in Georgia. When consumed in large quantities, they can be harmful to humans.
To trace the scale of the deception, Mgeladze interviewed major poultry suppliers, grocery managers, and food-security experts. He also went undercover. Posing as a farmer, he attempted to sell pale-skinned chickens to market vendors and shopkeepers, only to be repeatedly turned away. “Nobody buys a white chicken; everyone wants the yellow one,” one vendor told him.
Many dealers even offered pro-tips, advising the reporter to use synthetic additives to achieve that coveted golden glow. “The result is guaranteed. You’ll get exactly this shade,” one shopkeeper promised, gesturing toward the rows of yellow birds lining the stand.
The secret ingredient in these additives is canthaxanthin, a pigment that first gained notoriety in the 1980s. Back then, suntan enthusiasts and bodybuilders would pop canthaxanthin pills to achieve a quick bronze glow for the beach or the stage. Then it turned out that continued usage caused adverse health effects, including liver damage and vision impairment.
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns against ingesting canthaxanthin pills. In both the US and the EU, canthaxanthin is strictly regulated, approved only as a food colorant within tiny, designated limits. In Georgia, however, the use of canthaxanthin or similar pigment-pushing agents remains a regulatory Wild West. Imports of edible colorants have spiked over the last five years, hitting a whopping 124 tons in 2024, the story found.
Some Georgian healthcare providers suspect that yellow chicken may be creating yellow humans. Dr. Maia Butsashvili, a prominent Georgian physician, told RFE/RL that she frequently sees patients complaining that their skin is turning yellow. When hepatitis is ruled out, suspicion typically falls on diet. “As a rule, the continued consumption of carotenes is the cause,’ Butsashvili said. “This condition is called carotenoderma.”
She noted that while the excessive intake of naturally occurring carotenes can trigger the condition, chemically enhanced foods may also be to blame. “Unfortunately, we can’t always trace it back to the specific source,” she said, adding that synthetic carotenes are a more significant health concern than the natural alternatives.
A nation of 3.6 million people, Georgia consumes 77,000 tons of chicken annually. When pressed by RFE/RL, only a handful of the poultry market’s big players admitted to using artificial colorants. Most companies doubled down, insisting their birds are additive-free and naturally golden. However, with no proper regulations or lab facilities in place to fact-check the claims, Georgian consumers are forced to simply take their word for it.
This original source article ‘როგორ ღებავენ ქათმებს ყვითლად — ჟურნალისტური გამოძიება’ was published in Georgian in Radio Tavisupleba (the Georgian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) on August 13, 2025.
It is available here.
Radio Tavisupleba is the Georgian-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an independent international news organisation. Based in Tbilisi and Prague, it provides digital, radio and multimedia journalism in Georgian and Russian, offering fact-based reporting, analysis and cultural programming in a highly polarized media landscape.
Summary by GL
We hope you’ve enjoyed the read. Keep an eye out for next week!
The Translator team