Basques looking for opportunity traveled throughout the world. Many landed in the Americas but more than a few made their way to Australia, encourage by informal government initiatives between Spain and Australia to work in the sugarcane fields. But these lonely men desired companionship, so a second plan was hatched to bring “young, attractive, and […]
Today, I’m sharing a number of interesting items that have been sent to me over the last… well, I don’t dare say, as some of these have been sitting in my inbox for far too long. I hope you enjoy these!
Press release by Sancho de Beurko Association (sanchobeurko@gmail.com) The Texas House of Representatives, namely Rafael Anchia (HD 103), will present a resolution honoring Basque WWII Veterans on the House Floor at the State Capitol in Austin, TX on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. This will be the first resolution to honor Basque and Basque American WWII veterans in the […]
“My father was a sheepherder, and his home was the hills.” The opening to Robert Laxalt’s Sweet Promised Land resonates with so many of us, capturing not only the sheepherder life of his own father, but the experience of many Basque immigrants who made new homes in the American West. I discovered Laxalt’s books when […]
Thomas Jefferson. John Adams. Benjamin Franklin. George Washington. These are the founding fathers of what would become the United States of America. The Basque community in the United States has, in some sense, our own founding father. Along with his brother Bernardo, Pedro Altube was the catalyst of the Basques’ strong role in the livestock […]
Most of us who have Basque heritage in the western United States trace that connection to the Basque sheepherders that, in years past, dotted the entire western landscape. My dad came over when he was 18 years old, drawn by the promise of economic opportunity and his three uncles who were already here herding. These […]
The United States has a thriving Basque community, driven primarily, though not exclusively, by many years of immigration to the US West. California is the state that the most Basques call home while Boise, Idaho, is the city with the largest number of Basques. However, it is tiny Winnemucca in northern Nevada – with only […]
During the Spanish Civil War, particularly the years of 1936-1937, thousands of women and children, many of the latter without their parents, were evacuated from the Basque Country to a variety of countries, including the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Denmark. I’ll write about some of these others in the future. However, a key […]
It’s often easy to forget the role that France, and along with them the Basques from Iparralde, had in the history of North America. From Louisiana to Canada, Iparraldetarrak had an enormous hand in shaping the history of the continent. One dramatic example comes from Quebec, in which the grandson of a Basque military officer […]
