Shakira’s strong testimony about United States immigration policy

“Being immigrant in the United States today means living with constant fear. And it is painful to see it.” Shakira’s response in an interview with the BBC that was published this weekend already turned the world. Designed as an article about their international tour ”women no longer cry” and the show that the Colombian artist gave in Miami, where he lives, the report covers the details of the behind the scene of his show but above all he highlights Shakira’s current concerns as part of the immigrants community in the United States.

“Now, more than ever, we have to remain united. Now, more than ever, we have to raise our voice and make it very clear that a country can change its immigration policies, but the treatment of all people must always be human,” added the singer in her talk with Mark Savage, BBC music correspondent, who pointed out that Shakira chose to talk about the subject in both English and Spanish.

The artist had already made public her reflections on her experience and acceptance in the United States and how that contrasts with the attitude of the Government of Donald Trump towards immigrants. “I want to dedicate this award to all my immigrant brothers and sisters in this country. They are loved, they are worth it and I will always fight with you,” he said by accepting Grammy for the best Latin pop album earlier this year.

In the talk with the BBC held after the concert in Miami that Savage describes as “two and a half hours of musical drama: an uninterrupted parade of bilingual successes, 13 changes of costumes and constant movement”, Shakira remembered his first years as an immigrant in Miami, the city to which he moved in adolescence with the hope of being able to do the crossover From the Latin market to the global music industry, because although it was already a star in Colombia, the singer and songwriter knew that international success meant singing in English. The problem: at that height of his life he had not yet learned the language.

“I was only 19 when I moved to the United States, like many other Colombian immigrants who arrive in this country in search of a better future, and I remember that it was surrounded by Spanish-English dictionaries and synonyms of synonyms, because at that time I did not have Google or Chatgpt. So everything was very precarious,” recalls Shakira in the interview with the British media.

“Then I fond of poetry and began to read some of Leonard Cohen, Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan, trying to understand how English works in the composition of songs. I think this is how I became good in this, ”admits the singer in the talk that also includes curious data on the stage of the tour that brought her to Buenos Aires in March.

Among the curious details a talk with the head of costumes, Hannah Kinkade, who has almost 300 costumes to take care and said that each outfit must be renewed before a new show, because “Shakira dances with a lot From the tour travels with two washing machines and dryers so as not to leave any details librated at random.

This is how Shakira demands, a perfectionist, according to his entire troupe. “She knows what she wants, and if she doesn’t get it, she will get it in one way or another,” says the musical director Tam Mitchell, who works with Shakira since the 90s. “It is very meticulous with every aspect of the show: the sound, the visual, the lighting, the bracelets, everything. It is incredible. I do not know how it does it,” Mitchell wides The album that inspires her, are built on the basis of the painful and very public experiences of the artist in recent years.

“Many of you know that the last years have not been the easiest to me. But who does not fall from time to time, not? What I have learned is that a fall is not the end, but the beginning of an even better road,” says Shakira on the stage of the Miami hard rock stadium. And even if you do not explicitly mention at the end of their eleven -year relationship with Gerard Piqué, her father’s health problems that had to undergo emergency cerebral surgery, and her judicial problems with the Spanish authorities who accused her of fiscal fraud for 14.5 million euros (US $ 16.8 million), a process by which she finally reached an extrajudicial agreement, her audience, the more than two million fans who saw her For 64 cities in America, they already know everything and are there to show their unconditional support. And the artist thanks them on stage.

“To set up a spectacle of this size and be held every night, it doesn’t matter if you are sad, if you had a bad day, if you are sick or if you have cough; you simply have to do your best and, miraculously, get it to happen. And the adrenaline, in fact, it does not let me feel the exhaustion or demanding that it can be. It helps you overcome it.”