It is played or performed at funerals and memorials large and small, and pushes people to tears in nearly any setting, from bars to supermarket aisles. Singalongs, often pressed through sobs, are unavoidable. “Eternal love,” the most well-known part of the lyrics say, in Spanish. “Unforgettable.”
For millions of Mexican Americans, Mexicans, and anyone familiar with Mexico’s golden age of pop music (the 1980s), the song “Amor Eterno” is the de facto theme of farewell. But this week, in the aftermath of the Aug. 3 mass shooting at Walmart in El Paso, the anthem took on a more potent meaning.
Instances of people singing “Amor Eterno” at vigils and impromptu memorials are dotting social media. On Sunday, a day after the shooting, a youthful mariachi group known as Puesta del Sol performed the song at an interfaith vigil held at Ponder Park in El Paso. At the site of the shooting that same evening, a Univision journalist captured the moment when a young woman broke out into the familiar lyrics, shakily and for no listener in particular, before wiping away tears.
“People were just crying, holding hands, because the song is so popular,” said Angélica Casas, a videographer for the BBC, who filmed the mariachi at the vigil. Her clip, posted to Twitter, has been watched more than 330,000 times in two days.
Written by Juan Gabriel, a pop superstar and a border native from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, “Amor Eterno” is a strumming mariachi ballad that was popularized by Juan Gabriel’s longtime vocal muse, the singer Rocío Durcal. The lyrics can be translated as: “How I wish that you still lived, that your precious eyes had never closed, so that I could see them now … Eternal love, unforgettable.”
Mexican culture is imbued with music at times of mourning, a feature of the national identity that translates to U.S.-born Mexican-Americans even after they might assimilate or become English-dominant, said Ernesto Chavez, a professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso.
“My parents are from Juarez, and although I’m not a big fan of Juan Gabriel, he’s always invoked,” said Dr. Chavez, who was born in Los Angeles. “The only time I hear ‘Amor Eterno’ is at funerals.”
“It was played at my aunt’s funeral,” he said. “My sister-in-law just got up and started singing it with the mariachis.”
A nine-story mural of Juan Gabriel greets visitors from El Paso a few blocks after crossing south into Juárez from the Del Norte bridge, Dr. Chavez noted. Juan Gabriel was born in 1950 in southern Mexico and raised in Juárez, where he is a considered a native son. He died in August 2016 in Santa Monica, Calif., at 66.
For El Pasoans, and Americans of Mexican descent more broadly, the sense of loss this week is intensified by the realization that the victims in El Paso were targeted for their ethnic and national background. Eight of the 22 victims in El Paso have been confirmed as Mexican nationals. Their lives were cut short while visiting the U.S. for back-to-school shopping.
The tragedy in El Paso was one of two mass shootings in the United States that occurred hours apart in Texas and Dayton, Ohio, taking the lives of 31 people in total. Days earlier, on July 28, a gunman killed three and injured thirteen more in Gilroy, Calif., at a garlic festival. “Amor Eterno” was sung at a San Jose, Calif., vigil held for 13-year-old Keyla Salazar, who was killed in Gilroy, according to a report in The Salinas Californian.
The shootings in El Paso and Gilroy are being investigated as acts of domestic terrorism. According to federal investigators, in all three shooting cases, the gunmen expressed, or were said to be exploring, violent ideologies.
As the identities of more victims are released, and El Paso and Juárez prepare to send off their loved ones at funerals, “Amor Eterno” is likely to be heard more in the coming days, Mr. Chavez said.
“People are just trying to find ways to grieve, and I think that song has become that, basically,” he said.
