MIAMI - What happens when singles from across Latin America and the U.S. Latino communities are put together without phones, social media, or the usual distractions of modern dating and are left to figure out whether attraction can survive cultural differences?
For Cecilia Galliano, one of the lessons from El Túnel del Amor was surprisingly simple: when it comes to falling in love, nationality may matter far less than people think.
The Argentine-born, Mexico-based television personality is one of the hosts of the new reality dating show, which brings together Latinas and Latinos contestants. The format gave Galliano a front-row seat to how a younger generation dates, fights, flirts, and falls for one another when much of the outside world is removed.
"We have people from Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the United States. We have Mexico, too. We have many countries," Galliano said in an interview with this reporter.
But despite the accents, customs, and cultural backgrounds represented among the contestants, Galliano said she discovered something much more universal. "Even though we speak differently, emotions and love are the same for everyone," she said. "There aren't codes there. You don't have a way of loving because you're Cuban or a way of loving because you're Argentine. Love is love."
That idea has particular resonance coming from Galliano. Born in Argentina, she moved to Mexico at 19 and has spent virtually her entire adult life there, building a television career and raising her family in the country.
Today, Galliano has little hesitation about describing herself as Mexican as well as Argentine. "My adult life, I've lived it here. My children grew up here. My son is Mexican, my friends," she said. "Mexico has given me so many things, personally as well as professionally."
Then she offered a definition of belonging that goes beyond a passport.
"I say that we're not from where we're born, but where we choose to live," Galliano said. "And I choose, and would choose again, Mexico."
Her identity has become so intertwined with Mexico that working on El Túnel del Amor produced an unexpected reminder of just how long she has been away from Argentina.
Galliano recalled hearing an Argentine colleague giving her directions through her earpiece during production. It was the first time in approximately 27 years, she said, that someone had spoken to her with an Argentine accent through the earpiece while she was working. Her brain initially struggled to process it. "I was like, 'What is she saying?'" Galliano recalled, laughing.
After nearly three decades working in Mexican television, even the rhythms and expressions she instinctively associates with being on set have become Mexican.
"I grew up Mexican," she said of her adult life. The transformation has not gone unnoticed back home. When Galliano visits her family in Argentina, she said they announce her arrival with a joke: "The Mexican actress has arrived."
That experience of living between cultures gives Galliano an interesting vantage point for El Túnel del Amor, where nationality is only one of the differences contestants have to navigate.
The experiment places 10 people who don't know each other into an environment divided between two residences, Casa Ciudad and Casa Playa, connected by the show's namesake tunnel. There are no phones or the constant stream of outside information that normally accompanies dating in 2026. Instead, Galliano said, contestants spent their time cooking, eating, talking and learning about one another face-to-face.
"They felt, they played, they got excited, they cried," she said, describing emotions that remained exposed "24/7" while they lived together without technology. Galliano believes that separation from the outside world also distinguishes El Túnel del Amor from reality shows populated by celebrities and influencers.
A public figure entering a reality show, she noted, may remain conscious of a career, audience and social-media reaction waiting outside. That can affect what someone says or how much of themselves they are willing to expose. The contestants she observed were different.
"This reality is very real, very organic, with real people," Galliano said, contrasting them with participants who might stop themselves from saying something because they're afraid of being "canceled."
The experience also challenged some of Galliano's own ideas about dating. Watching younger contestants interact made the 49-year-old host question some of the relationship rules her own generation inherited. "I said, 'How behind I am in everything, how old-fashioned I am in everything,'" Galliano recalled.
She began thinking about "how many patterns were put on us" and how many ideas about relationships were presented by society as the way things simply had to be. Galliano was particularly struck by the freedom she saw among younger women. Rather than describing them simply as more forward, she said they "live, feel and allow themselves to live and feel," while women of her generation were often taught that doing so was somehow wrong.
Yet spending so much time watching people pursue romance didn't convince Galliano that she needs to find it herself.
Asked whether El Túnel del Amor had inspired her to start looking for a relationship, she laughed off the idea. She said she is happy with her children, friends, family, pets and career. If somebody enters her life, Galliano said, that person should add to what she already has, not introduce unnecessary conflict.
"I don't want conflict in my life," she said and went even further, challenging the expectation that happiness requires a romantic partner. "I think society also gave us this idea that if you don't have a partner, you're not happy," she said. "Before someone comes along who isn't going to add something, I'd rather be happy and alone."
For now, she seems perfectly content letting El Túnel del Amor contestants do the falling in love, and Galliano promises that the multicultural dating experiment isn't limited to sweet romances. The contestants' stories will be recognizable to people well beyond their generation because love, complicated relationships, and toxicity aren't exclusive to any age.
"We've all experienced love. We've all experienced toxicity, and we continue experiencing it," she said. Then came her final warning about what viewers can expect. "It's pretty spicy," Galliano teased. "There's a little chile in there."
Different countries. Different accents. Different ways of expressing themselves. But after watching them live and love together, Galliano's conclusion remained the same:"Love is love."
