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The Story of Miguel Etulain

By John Etulain Like many other Basques before and after him, my father, Miguel “Mike” Etulain, came to the United States and made a notable life for himself and his family.  In 1952, he arrived in the United States where he worked for his Uncle Juan Etulain in Sunnyside, Washington.  Juan was getting out of the sheep […]

Basque Fact of the Week: Sancheski, Skateboard Pioneer

Who knew the Basque Country had a pioneer in skateboarding? Not me! Sancheski, based in Irun, Gipuzkoa, made the first skateboard in all of Europe in 1966. Like Orbea, the company had to reimagine itself when times got hard and new opportunities arose. Starting off as a ski company back in the 1930s, they shifted […]

Basque Fact of the Week: Juan de Oñate, the First Governor of New Mexico, was Basque

We are all familiar with the wave of Basque migration that brought sheepherders to the American West, and rightfully so given the close connection many of us have with those immigrants. However, the American Southwest is literally littered with Basque names from centuries earlier, when Basques were a large part of the conquistadors that swept […]

Juan Uberuaga, the Lion of Oiz

In a recent post, I mentioned my dad’s uncle, Juan Uberuaga, who was renown for his strength. He was called “Oizko Lehoia,” or the Lion of Oiz, the mountain peak very near Munitibar. I was recently in the Basque Country and had dinner with his son, who had seen my post, and provided me with […]