Kepa and Maite stood in line to board the ferry to Liberty Island. In front of them, beyond the throng of people also waiting in line, they could see the Statue of Liberty. Whenever Kepa turned around, he saw the massive skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan. He couldn’t wait until tonight, when they would hit Times […]
A lot of our Christmas traditions grew out of pre-Christian practices and beliefs, often arising from celebrations of the Winter Solstice. The idea of Christmas carols – of going from house-to-house singing songs – stems from Yule Singing or Wassailing. Mistletoe came from Celtic beliefs that associated it with male fertility. In fact, the whole […]
The next morning, Maite and Kepa slept like rocks. Edurne tried to let them sleep in while she spent the morning working from her home office. However, it was still pretty early when Kepa could hear voices outside his door. “Sweety, they just flew thousands of miles across the ocean. They are very tired, they […]
Today, the three Basque provinces of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa form the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC), a political entity within Spain that is led by the Lehendakari, or President, of the BAC. However, if we look back in time, the first Lehendakari presided over a very different government. The first Basque government was formed from […]
Kepa hadn’t seen a feast like this since, well, the last time his cousin had visited the Basque Country and his mom had invited everyone to the baserri. Edurne’s parents had laid out the table with salads, beans, steak, roasted vegetables, and freshly made bread. In addition to Kepa and Maite, Edurne and her family, […]
Because of their mysterious origins, the Basques fascinate historians and linguists. Linguists try to reconstruct the prehistory of the Basque language in the hope of understanding where it came from. Geneticists examine the DNA of populations all over Europe to try to establish a link. While these efforts shed greater light on the origins of […]
Kepa and Maite walked down the passenger boarding bridge, hand in hand, as they debarked in New York City. The last week had been a blur. After their encounter with Marina, they had almost completely forgotten about the zatiak as they had been in a frenzy to finalize their preparations for their trip. The flight […]
This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario. You can find all of the English versions of the Fighting Basques series here. The invasion of Burma (now Myanmar) – in the hands of the British Empire since 1886 – by the Empire of the Rising Sun at the end of December 1941 was another […]
For over 1000 years, the village of La Hoya grew and evolved, becoming a flourishing trade center. Then, suddenly, about 2200 years ago, it ceased to exist, completely obliterated. Thanks to the efforts of scientists from the University of Oxford, the National Center for Scientific Research in France, Arkikus, and the Alava Institute of Archeology […]
Five years ago, early on Thanksgiving morning, Dad died. He’d spent the last eighteen years battling a multitude of health problems that stemmed from heart failure and the heart transplant that saved his life. That new heart gave him eighteen more years, but not all of them were wonderful, as a myriad of other issues […]
