We Should Talk About Bruno

In Disney’s Encanto, each member of the Madrigal family has one gift they’re supposed to use to help the family. These gifts range from weather control, to super strength, to the ability to heal anyone with a delicious arepa. Their town depends on these gifts, so the family is left heartbroken when the movie’s protagonist Mirabel turns out giftless. However, over the course of the film, as the Madrigal family loses their gifts, it is Mirabel who mends her family’s foundational cracks.

Encanto brings beautifully nuanced and genuine Latine representation to the big screen, with a full representation highlighting both its elegance and shortcomings.

Mirabel could not have succeeded without her uncle Bruno — who helped her despite all that the family did to him.

One of the film’s most famous songs, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” introduces Mirabel’s estranged uncle through the judgmental eyes of family members, who justify his ostracization because his gift of prophecy often told them truths they did not want to hear. Abuela, the family’s matriarch, harnessed her children’s and grandchildren’s gifts to uphold the purity and reputation of the family — an aim she could never achieve with Bruno’s gift. So he was shunned and estranged to save face.

“We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is more than a silly song from a children’s movie. Film and music are essential media for spearheading discourse around social change, especially in places like Puerto Rico, where music is a critical part of cultural expression. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” asks listeners to think about the Brunos in their own lives. This is especially important since stories like Bruno’s are more common than you might think in Latine communities — including, as I recently learned, in my own family.

Sitting in a church pew for her grandfather’s funeral, my Mama remembers seeing a six-foot-tall woman walking in with beautiful long black pelo lacio, or straight hair. The whispers began, her presence triggering an eruption of hushed unease across the room. Mama and her sisters’ curiosity was quickly suppressed by their aunts, who instructed them to “ignore” and “not talk to him,” and to “focus on the service.”

Him? Puzzled, Mama watched on. The woman was ushered out and returned to the service dressed in a guayabera, a traditional formal men’s shirt.

The last time Mama saw this woman was shortly after the funeral, stealing glances into a hallway where my Abuela was secretly coaching her to walk “less feminine.”

Channels of chisme, or gossip, later revealed that she was a cousin Mama did not know she had, because the woman’s mother did not accept her as her child — let alone as her daughter. She was a transgender woman, a strong soul sent away to experience the world separately, because her family preferred theirs without her insofar as she was a “her.”

She had been living in New York City, for her safety and autonomy, and had returned only for the funeral. However, she stayed longer than intended, with the home her parents had offered for her stay turning out to be a setup for conversion therapy — a final effort before severing ties.

These were the conditions of her family’s love.

Having previously thought there were no other queer people within my family, this story shook me. I yearned to discover what happened to her, though all that remains is the presumably biased history circulated throughout the family. How many others’ names must we bury? How many other names have we buried that I will never hear?

Queerness is still shrouded by a shadow of controversy, especially in Latine communities, only acceptable “as long as it’s not my kid.” But accepting queerness from afar is not the same as accepting queerness.

My lingering fear of becoming the next Bruno puts my identity and culture at crossroads, a sentiment shared by many of the queer people of color I have met at Harvard. Even if we are accepted among our peers, being out at home is often much more difficult: We must grapple with the desire to make our families look good, even at the expense of hiding who we are. We share the anxiety of being asked who we’re dating at a family gathering and trying not to give an answer that will get our family uninvited from the next one. We know the discomfort of performing straightness, dressing so that our families are not held responsible for our self-expression.

Don’t get me wrong: There are countless beautiful pockets for queer people to flourish and find family outside of blood relations. I’ve found comfort leaning into my own queerness throughout my time at Harvard, especially after meeting a mix of those happily out, with and without supportive families.

But within my family and others, the fear of becoming the next Bruno will never disappear until we begin having more open conversations about the ones we’ve already sent away.

It’s about time we talked about Bruno.

Maia Patel Masini ’25, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Kirkland House.

This piece is part of The Crimson’s 2023 Pride Month special issue.