EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – When I think about El Paso, I think about culture. Because to me, the city is the definition of embracing each other’s cultures and coexisting in harmony.
And this El Paso musician teaches us how her Syrian and Mexican roots coexisted throughout her life, inspiring her latest album, “Árabe.”
Vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Amanda Ekery is half-Syrian, half-Mexican, and was born in El Paso.
She made her way into the jazz world when she moved to New York in 2018. But despite her successful career, she’s always coming home to give back to her community one way or another.
Ekery is also the founder of El Paso Jazz Girls, a local nonprofit organization that teaches young girl musicians to write and perform their own original music.
Every summer, Ekery comes back to El Paso to host the cost-free summer program and to engage with her fellow local musicians.
And if that was not enough, Ekery has now launched her latest album “Árabe,” which focuses on her roots in the Borderland.
What is interesting about this album is how complete and well-thought it is. It has 12 songs with different topics surrounding the main idea. However, each song comes with its “own essay,” narrating the story or inspiration behind each track, which are compiled in a book.
Over 60 pages capture the five years Ekery spent researching for this unique album to capture the beauty of each track.
I had the opportunity to speak with Ekery herself, who said she was so excited for this new album.
“I’ve been working on it (album) for over five years, and it’s all about Syrian and Mexican shares history and culture in El Paso. So, I did interviews with the Syrian Ladies Club of El Paso, I worked with the UTEP librarians to pull research on immigration data,” Ekery said.
Ekery explained she wrote 12 songs about everything, from gambling, the evil eye, and biracial identity to songs about food similarities.
“The essays go more into detail about the research I did, and personal stories that kind of tie together the scenes that you hear in the music as well,” Ekery said.
To better understand this album, we need to go back five years, to the moment Ekery started getting inspiration for this album.
“My mom is Mexican, and my dad’s side is Syrian, so I wanted to know why there was kind of a sizable population of Arabs in El Paso. I did some research and found it was very similar to the Mexican history that is tied to the area — like immigration, borders separating families, and then all the stuff happening around that time,” Ekery said.
Ekery said she felt very lucky to have grown up in El Paso, saying, “It was a wonderful kind of third space that it wasn’t exactly like the rest of the U.S. or Mexico.”
“In El Paso, there is a Syrian diaspora of people who live there and who also speak Spanish. And if we go way back, we can learn that there are a lot of similarities in the language, culture, superstition, food, and agricultural soil, Ekery said.
She explained that she didn’t think her research was going to turn into a book or an album, but that she had learned so much, and she wanted to share it in a relatable way to take everybody on a deeper dive into the themes in the history that she found.
“If you were to ask me what my thoughts are on this album, I would say it’s a love letter to the biracial community in the city. A love letter that reassures you are not alone, and your roots matter,” she said.
Even though Ekery focuses her album on her research and personal stories, I could see people relate to the biracial identity struggle that is portrayed in some of her songs. Which, in my humble opinion as a Mexican-American, it’s a nice reminder that our history matters.
Ekery will present her new book and album starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, at the El Paso Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) 201 W. Franklin Ave.
Attendees will be able to purchase her art and enjoy live performances.
You can learn more about this local artist and her album here. The album is also available on streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify, among others.
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