It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do any updates. I hope to do a series of them over the next few weeks and get reasonably “caught up”. “We need to turn the page. But we should read it first.” –Gorka Landaburu. To understand the recent history and current reality of the Basque Country, […]
As many of you already know, Pete Cenarrusa, a long time politician in Idaho (the longest serving elected official in state history) died on September 29. It didn’t take long after his death for his life to be questioned in the Spanish press, particularly as it related to an incident in 2002 when the Idaho […]
Mark Bieter is a Basque-American originally from Idaho who finds himself in Washington DC. He keeps a blog that touches pretty much any and all topics (Taylor Swift, really?), including many on the Basques and the Basque culture. Not only is Mark a very good writer, making each blog post interesting and intriguing, but he […]
Of course, during my visit to Euskal Herria in early April, one of the topics that came up was the crisis. Spain is in particularly bad shape, with unemployment over 20% in the general populace and much higher for young men. The Basque Country is in reasonably good shape, with unemployment hovering in the 8-9% […]
Continuing on the big news of ETA ending violence, here are two more perspectives that might be of interest. First, Mark Bieter, who, by the way, has a wonderful blog that you should be reading if you aren’t already, has an interview he did with Jaime Otamendi, who is “a long-time ETB journalist and host, […]
Yesterday, ETA officially announced the end of its campaign of violence. While viewed with skepticism by the main political parties of Spain, this is a historic day for the Basque Country. And one that was inevitable. While the PP and PSOE make typical remarks about how we’ve seen this before and how can we trust […]
In his blog, Ricardo Ibarra posted an infographic taken from El Correo that shows the breakdown of the last elections by region within the Basque Autonomous Community, an image shamelessly stolen from him and reposted here (click on the image for a bigger version). It is interesting to see how things break down. Gipuzkoa went […]
It wasn’t long ago, in fact not even a month ago, that Spanish courts had ruled that a new party in the Basque Country couldn’t stand for elections held just yesterday. Bildu (Gather in English), a coalition of nationalist and left-of-center groups, was formed when Sortu (Create in English), another attempt to form a new […]
At the time of its closing, in 2003, Egunkaria was the only daily newspaper published solely in Euskara. It had been in operation for 13 years. In 2003, however, Spanish authorities raided the offices of Egunkaria, confiscating computers and equipment, and arresting many of the leading figures of the newspaper. The charges were association with […]
From Joe Guerricabeitia of Seattle Euskal Etxea — I thought it worth sharing: Kaixo danori (Hello everyone), This email is being sent to you to serve as reminder to remember your heritage as you sit down to fill out your 2010 US Census. As in censuses past, this year’s census asks both about 1) Ethnicity […]
