Koldo San Sebastian is a journalist and writer who has spent his career working in various media on themes of Basque history, including a television documentary on the Spanish Civil War in Euskadi, a book on the history of the Basque Nationalist Party, and another on the Basque exile in America. Koldo is currently writing […]
Miguel Ocamica, the son of Ramon, a good friend of my dad’s who was one of the chorizo crew I posted about a while back, is trying to gather the Ocamicas of the world together. The goal is to establish a family tree of some sort between all the Ocamicas of the world. To facilitate […]
To Basques in the US, Nancy Zubiri is well known. Author of A Travel Guide to Basque America, there is probably no one who knows better both the current landscape of Basque America or how that landscape came to be. Thus, it is very fitting that Nancy has just launched a new project, an online […]
Having read Laurence Bergreen’s description of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, Over the Edge of the World (see this post), I was very interested in Christine Echeverria Bender’s take of the same voyage, Sails of Fortune, partially because I found Bergreen’s account so fascinating, but also because I knew Bender’s would cast a more favorable […]
I originally wrote these thoughts in August of 2005 and thought I’d posted them here, but just realized I hadn’t. In looking back, there are clearly some errors in what I wrote, which I’ve corrected. Over the Edge of the World, by Laurence Bergreen, tells the story of the first voyage around the world, the […]
Sheep were a big business in southwest Idaho/eastern Oregon/northern Nevada. As a result, a lot of Basques settled in the high desert of the area. Sheep brought my dad and my mom’s grandparents to America. My mom’s aitxitxa, Blas Telleria, and amuma, Ines Eiguren, both settled in Jordan Valley, OR, a small town just on […]
I’ve been meaning to share this set of links for a while and just thought I’d “dump” them on you before I either forget or they get outdated. 
Last.fm, an online music station of sorts, has a channel dedicated to Kortatu and similar artists. I haven’t spent a lot of time with it yet, […]
Sunday, April 26, marks the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Gernika. When I posted on a previous anniversary, I wrote that the Wikipedia article on the bombing briefly mentions that, in addition to Gernika and Durango, Gerrikaitz was also bombed. I was intrigued by this as my dad is from that town and I […]
Finding nice overviews of the Basque Country — its history, culture, traditions, and language — is rare in English. There are, of course, The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky and The Basque Country: A Cultural History by Paddy Woodworth. But, both of those are rather lengthy and certainly have their authors’ respective […]
It was one of the most horrific events in modern warfare. During the Spanish Civil War, at the behest of Franco, the German Luftwaffe bombed the Basque town of Gernika, on a Monday, the traditional market day for the town. They also bombed Durango and, I have read, the town where my dad is from, […]
