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 […]
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 […]
Delphine Pontvieux, a member of the forum, has just released her novel ETA: Estimated Time of Arrest… WRONG PLACE… After participating in a pro-separatist march that turned violent in January of 1992, 21-year-old Lorenzo Lartaun Izcoa is wrongly charged with the fatal bombing of a police station in his home town. Irun is a small […]
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, […]
A historian’s greatest challenge is to convey the excitement and drama of history. This is especially true for more obscure subjects, as the reader doesn’t already come with some emotional attachment. But this is exactly where Christine Bender excels. By using fiction as her vehicle to explore historical events, Christine is able to delve into […]
As I mentioned earlier, a couple of weeks ago, I spent a week in Munitibar, the town my dad grew up in and where his brother runs the Herriko Taberna. During that week, something like three people died, including the oldest resident of the town (who was 98). Of course, for each, there was a […]
Ok, maybe not quite what you think. The Aug 30 edition of The Gazette reported on the death of Sam Etcheverry, one of the greatest quarterbacks of the Montreal Alouettes and the Canadian Football League (CFL). He also coached the Alouettes to a championship of the CFL. Sam was born in Carlsbad, NM. What the […]
Last month, my family and I were up in Idaho to visit grandparents. While visiting amuma and aitxitxa (now affectionately known as “txitxi”), a couple of dad’s buddies got together at the Txoko Ona, their Basque center in Homedale, to eat and play cards. They’d planned it a bit, but it wasn’t an overly involved […]
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 […]
