Hella Basque is a blog by Anne-Marie, a young Basque woman who grew up in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California. Hella Basque started maybe five years ago and gave a youthful perspective on being Basque in the United States, a view that resonated with many readers. Anne-Marie, a veteran of the Basque festival […]
My dad left the Basque Country for the United States when he was 18. As many others before, including three uncles who were already in the US, he was looking for a better life. After three years of sheepherding, he went back to the Basque Country with enough money to buy an apartment in Gernika. […]
During the Christmas holiday, which we spent in and around Boise visiting grandparents, we made a stop at the Basque Museum and Cultural Center. After making our yearly pass through the gift shop, we took a stroll through the museum itself and found the newest exhibit on Basques in the military. The goal is to […]
A lot of the men that came to the United States were barely more than boys. Suddenly, they found themselves alone in the hills of west, tending herds of sheep with little more company than their dog. It’s no surprise, then, that many of them left their signature behind. Tagging the trees like urban kids […]
In July, I was on a business trip in Versailles, France, and the hosts took us on a tour of the palace and the Jeu de Paume Room. Jeu de Paume is a game where players played a form of handball and tennis. The court at Versailles is famous because the French deputies of the […]
My dad was Basque through and through. He didn’t have the typical trappings — he never did any folk dance and I never saw him wear a txapala. While when he got older he played mus and made chorizo and jamon, he didn’t do these things when I was a kid. However, whenever he got […]
Eighty years ago, Spain was mired in a civil war that pitted the Republican government and its allies against the Nationalist forces of Franco. As Franco’s forces gained ground in the Basque Country, thousands of people, mostly children, fled to other lands, becoming refugees. Britain alone took nearly 4000 children. This is the story of […]
I first learned about Santiago Ramón y Cajal from Vince Juaristi’s great book Basque Firsts: People Who Changed the World. Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish scientist born in Nafarroa, was the father of modern neuroscience, developing the neuron doctrine of the brain that said the brain was composed of neurons connected by synapses. In his work, […]
Basques have had their impact on world history and there are key historical figures that most Basques already know. St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, was born in Loyola. The first person to (deliberately) circumnavigate the Earth, Juan Sebastian Elcano, was from Getaria. However, there are many other Basques that have made important […]
Alan King continues to share some great stories. He has two new Basque stories on his website. Kidnapped by the Basajaun tells the story of a shepherd frees a young woman who had been kidnapped by a basajaun and forced to live with him. The Dog with Charcoal Eyes is about a man, about to be […]
