Category Archives: Diaspora

Memories of Jaialdi

The title of this post may strike some as romantic, but really it’s just that it has been so long since Jaialdi and taken me so long to do this post, that indeed I’m working on memories, and I don’t have the best of memories in the first place… For those that don’t know, Jaialdi […]

Today in Basque History: Basque Poet Jailed, Boise Basque Icon

1943: Pierre d’ Arcangues, Basque poet of Arrangoitze, is jailed by the German Gestapo. 1932: Mari Carmen Totoricaguena Egurrola Albizu, founder of Anaiak Danok and Biotzetik in Idaho, is born in Gernika. She also directed a chorus of Basque children for 20 years and organized the Aberri Eguna celebrations in Boise, Idaho. She immigrated to […]

Today in Basque History: Prince of Peru, Fashion

1561: Lope de Aguirre, born in Onate, Gipuzkoa, and his men proclaim “Don Fernando, by the grace of God, prince of Peru, Tierra Firma and Chile,” intending to crown him king once they arrive in Peru. Fernando de Guzman is made general of the expedition — searching for Omagua and El Dorado — after Aguirre […]

Hidden in Plain Sight: the Basques

As many of you might already know, the Boise Basque Museum and Cultural Center, with help from the Basque Government, has been working on a project to highlight the Basques’ contributions to the history and settlement of the United States.  I’ve received a number of recent messages updating me on the status of the project, […]

Links: Blog, Tourism, Costume, and Snow

A couple of links I’ve been sent or found in wanderings of the web. First, Louis Arriaga Jr has a fascinating story of misunderstandings and miscarriage of justice (even one of the sentencing judges felt this way, but couldn’t do anything about it).  Clearly, Arriaga is of Basque descent, though his connections to Spain are […]

Euskadi to export Mondragon’s cooperative work model to US

Joe Guerricabeitia originally posted this on the Seattle Euskal Etxea website.  I really enjoyed it and, with his permission, repost it here. America is a nation of democracy. The Founding Fathers designed it so; Alexis de Tocqueville praised it. During the last half century America solidified this democracy such that every American man, woman and […]

Egunkaria libre

About 6 years ago, Egunkaria, then the only daily newspaper published fully in Basque, was shut down on suspicions of ties to terrorists.  Between then and now, no trials had occurred and it was thought that essentially the matter had been dropped.  However, now, 6 years later, those who worked at Egunkaria are indeed being […]

New Book: Gardeners of Identity by Pedro Oiarzabal

Pedro Oiarzabal, a newly minted researcher at the University of Deusto in Bilbao, has spent his young career focused on issues of Basque identity around the world.  His newest book is Gardeners of Identity: Basques in the San Francisco Bay Area, published by the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.  (Incidentally, […]

Commemoration of the bombing of Gernika amongst the Basque diaspora

I received this request for assistance from Daniel Clarke, who needs help researching how the diaspora commemorated the bombing of Gernika.  Feel free to write Daniel directly or to post your comments here. Dear all, I am a student at the University of Cambridge, England, working as part of a project looking at memory, heritage […]