Nor Naiz Gu Gara

Nor Naiz, Gu Gara: David Cox

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Nor Naiz, Gu Gara (Who I Am, We Are) is a series aiming to explore the meaning of Basque Identity around the world, both within Euskal Herria as well as in the diaspora.  For an introduction to the series, look here, and for a list of the previous entries, look here.

I have an unusual perspective on Basque identity as someone who can communicate in Euskara despite never having lived full-time in the Basque country, nor having any known Basque ancestry.

Many ‘clever’ people take as a given that one only learns a language for instrumental reasons (such as to find work) and not for the pure pleasure of communicating. People tend to learn the ‘big’ languages if they bother at all. It is easier to write off small peoples and explain them away.

And so, very few people from outside have tried to understand the Basques. I think of Orson Welles, George Lowther Steer, and Mark Kurlansky as those among the few who have made a start at doing so.

Big language people expect that others will learn their language to accommodate them. Not so the Basques.

Perhaps this is why I have seen doors open and faces completely change when I speak a few words of the Basque language — something that to me is just simple consideration and respect. And why we have made great friends and through them really become part of a community.

The reaction I have from people in on-line communities is similar. people look at my name and wonder what I am doing writing in Euskara. And they wonder how I know about Oskorri, Su Ta Gar, and other Basque cultural icons.

It has been said to me many times that “many people have lived here all their lives and they have not made an attempt to learn a few words of our language.” That said, there are many – including those with parents born in non-Basque Spain, who put a lot of effort into becoming Euskaldunak. Like friends of ours who are Basque learners and moved to Lekeitio so they could raise their children in a Basque-speaking milieu.

I am putting a bit of effort into learning Basque as well, spending a lot of time with the Ilari Zubiri blue grammar book, having graduated from Colloquial Basque. I haven’t taken classes, which has its downside.

What have I learned: There are other ways of looking at life than our self-satisfied, often wasteful, North American way. While each culture has its positives and negatives, we look with admiration at the Basques with their civilized public spaces, excellent transit systems, stewardship of scarce resources and many positive cultural traits. Most Basques would prefer to live closer together than to build sprawling cities of tract housing.

In my experience, a Basque does not spend a lot of time ruminating or navel-gazing or saying “woe is me.” They get on with it. A Basque does not say “we have to meet for lunch sometime,” for something to say. In general, a Basque does not pretend to be your friend on the first meeting. If you are a customer, he treats you as such, not as royalty. All of this takes some getting used to.

Without getting too philosophical about it, I think family life is stronger in the Basque Country because children and older folk are not as ghettoized. The attitude towards children in the Basque land is much more inclusive than in North America or Britain. I remember getting some blank looks trying to explain what a babysitter is. Or how we North Americans heedlessly move from one city to another.

After various visits to Euskal Herria, I think the culture has gotten a little bit inside of all of us in my family. I think speaking a language – even without having full command of it – changes our perspective on events, and becomes part of our identity. And when it is a “minority” language, like Basque or Welsh, we begin to identify with that group of speakers. We inhabit a shared world with our own cast of characters, places and stories.

I think it takes us out of our complacency and our tendency to individualism. It makes us somehow more “social” or part of a connected whole. And is this not what we as humans ultimately want to be?

David Cox lives in rural Ontario, Canada, with his family, and visits the Basque Country annually, or whenever possible. He writes for several internet-based publications including a music column, Altxor Bila, for Buber’s Basque Page.

People

In Memory: Antonio Uberuaga Zabala

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Jaialdi is more than just a gathering of the Basques of the US.  It is also an excuse and reason for people from the Basque Country to come and visit the US.  So it was for my dad’s brother, Antonio, who, with his wife Eli, made their first trek to the United States, to partake in Jaialdi but also to visit his older brother.

Growing up, I didn’t know much of dad’s family, except for a few uncles that lived in the US, one of which eventually went back to Spain.  My dad didn’t go back to visit often, and when he did, he did alone.  I first met Antonio, and the rest of dad’s family, when I went to Euskadi in 1991-92 to live in Donostia and try to learn Euskara and Spanish.  The first meetings were awkward, because my Spanish was horrible and my Euskara was even worse.  But, Antonio, like the rest of dad’s family, welcomed me, treated me wonderfully, and made me feel at home.

After Jaialdi, Antonio and Eli returned to Bizkaia and it wasn’t much more than a month later when Antonio, in the mountains searching for mushrooms as so many Basques like to do, collapsed.  He had a heart attack.  He died on the mountain.

I will remember Antonio for his graciousness, his warm smile, and his sincere attempts to engage me in what I was doing.  While we came from completely different worlds, both physically and mentally, he always invited me into his and was curious about mine.  Though he was retired due to some health issues, Antonio was still very adventurous, taking on the responsibilities of running the Herriko Taberna of his town for a year.  His family is truly wonderful, with his two kids, Eneritz and Egoitz, being two of the most unique and independent people I’ve ever met.

Antonio will be missed.  I’m just glad that my daughter had a chance to meet him before he died.

Food

Basque Cider Houses

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This article in the UK’s Guardian introduces 10 different Basque Cider Houses, or Sagardotegiak.  If you haven’t sampled Basque “Apple Wine” (the literal translation of sagardoa), you need to do yourself a favor and head to one of these Sagardotegiak.

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit two Sagardotegiak, one outside of Donostia when I spent a year living in that city and another time in Fika, Bizkaia.  They were both very nice, but very different, experiences.  In the one outside of Donostia, we all stood around high tables and food was brought to us in an appetizer fashion, with plates of bite-size chunks of steak, patatas fritas, and so on.  In Fika, we sat at a regular table, much as any restaurant, and ordered off a menu.  What both had in common, though, is that every once in a while, someone would let out a call and everyone would line up as they opened the tap on one of the kegs of cider.  As each person got to the head of the line, we put our glass under the flowing stream and got our fill of cider, at least until the next call.  It is important to let the cider travel a long ways before hitting your glass as it lets the cider aerate, giving it a bit more flavor.

Basque cider is a bit different than most other hard ciders I’ve had.  It isn’t sweet at all, it is very dry and somewhat harsh on the tongue.  It is an acquired taste, especially from an American point of view.  The ciders I’ve had in the US and UK were sweeter, good in their own right, but a very different beast.

I don’t remember now the name of the Sagardotegi I went to in Donostia, so I don’t know if it is on the Guardian’s list.  Based on the description, it could be that first one, Zelaia. In any case, it doesn’t matter much — this list seems like a good excuse to go touring the various cider houses and maybe making my own top 10 list.

Anyone else have sagardotegiak to recommend?

Photo from the Guardian article.

Folklore, Music, People

Oreka TX and the Txalaparta

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If you haven’t ever heard the txalaparta, you are missing out.  Originally an instrument of communication, the txalaparta has become a central part of modern Basque folk music.

The txalaparta is a set of planks, often about 5, that two people play together.  As such, it is billed as the only instrument in the world that is meant to be played simultaneously by two people.  Originally, it was only one plank and was used to communicate between valleys.  Rhythms were beat out that alerted neighboring valleys of weddings, deaths, and that the batch of sagardoa — hard cider — was ready.  However, by the mid-1900s, it was nearly lost, with only a few rural folk playing the instrument.  It was then that it was rediscovered by Basque folk musicians, who embraced it and made it a central part of Basque folk music.

Oreka TX is one of the leading groups promoting the txalaparta, pushing it as a musical instrument both in form and style (as they noted, the TX is for txalaparta, not Texas!).  The group — Harkaitz Martinez de San Vicente, Mikel Ugarte, Iñigo Eguia, Mixel Ducau, and Ander Sierra — came to New Mexico to perform at Globalquerque! in September and made a stop in Santa Fe to play for New Mexico Euskal Etxea.  And both performances were wonderful experiences.

Their current performance centers around their video, Nomadak TX, in which they traveled the world to encounter other cultures, using the txalaparta as a bridge to those cultures.  They highlight four destinations — Finland, Mongolia, Egypt, and India — and in each they make a txalaparta from local materials.  This is particularly interesting in Finland as they make one out of ice.  In each case, they interact with local musicians who have their own local instruments and essentially jam.  The txalaparta is more than an instrument, it is a connector to those cultures.

The performance at Globalquerque! involved showing clips from the video with the local musicians essentially prerecorded and the txalaparta duo — Harkaitz and Mikel — performing live on top.  Mixel played the alboka — another traditional Basque instrument — and other wind instruments such as the clarinet.  Iñigo accompanied on drums.  It was an awesome show, with the mallets used by Harkaitz and Mikel flying through the air.  They used txalapartas of both wood and metal for different pieces and really got what was a full crowd going.  I’m biased, of course, attracted to all things Basque, but I really think the txalaparta is one of the most visually dynamic instruments I’ve seen.  And it is amazing in its simplicity, what these guys can make these wooden planks do.

In Santa Fe, things were a little lower key, with the group performing a few pieces and then us showing the video of Nomadak TX.  They ended with a little bit of hands-on with the txalaparta for those in attendance.

That evening, we took the group to a local Santa Fe establishment, the Cowgirl, with its Old West feel, and had a very nice chat about the txalaparta, Basque folkmusic, and their travels.  One thing I hadn’t realized was that the txalaparta is specifically an instrument of Gipuzkoa.  In other parts of the Basque Country, they didn’t seem to have txalapartas exactly.  In Nafarroa, they played an instrument called the kirikoketa, which is related, in that two musicians hit a plank with mallets, but now they stand over the plank and the mallets are body-length.  In Bizkaia, coming out of the long history that province has with iron and steel, they play instead the tobera, which is an iron rod that is hit much like a txalaparta, again with two players.

All of the group members were great to talk to, very willing to share their experiences and knowledge, and very down to earth.  I guess that make sense, considering their travels.

If you have the chance to see these guys live, it is well worth it.  I highly recommend it.

Euskadi

The mystery of the Basques

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A nice video on the Basques, touching on a number of aspects of Basque culture, including their maritime history, bertsolariak, txalaparta, and pilota.

Diaspora, Music, Travel

Memories of Jaialdi

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The title of this post may strike some as romantic, but really it’s just that it has been so long since Jaialdi and taken me so long to do this post, that indeed I’m working on memories, and I don’t have the best of memories in the first place…

For those that don’t know, Jaialdi is the big Basque festival held every 5 years in Boise, Idaho over St. Ignatius weekend (the last weekend in July).  It brings Basques from all over the world together for a weekend of dance, music, sports, drink, and fun.  In fact, many come from the Basque Country itself, drawn by old friends or the reputation of a big party in the US, including my dad’s brother Antonio and his wife Eli, the first time they’ve come to the US.

We didn’t make it to every event but we did our best.  We started with Sports Night, on Thursday.  I went with my brother, my dad, and Antonio and Eli.  It was held right down town, across the street from the Basque Block in the same arena that the Boise hockey team plays in.  It was laid out with logs for the aizkolariak and stones for the harrijasotzaileak, as well as some other typical events.  Most I’d seen before, but there were a few, such as the relay carrying the heavy sack, that I did not.  One event, in which contestants try to pitch a bale of hay over a bar that is raised with each successful toss, was new to my uncle.  He had never seen that event in Bizkaia. At one point, two harrijasotzaileak “competed” with one another, each carrying a 100 lb stone around the arena.  One had to quit quickly, possibly having pulled something.  The other, though, hammed it up, engaging the crowd as he stood there, holding this huge stone in his lap.  When the night was over, children rushed into the arena, finding wood chips for the athletes to sign.

It was an interesting perspective, watching these events in this crowd.  On one side, I had my uncle, who is as much of a sports fan as any.  However, one thing you don’t realize as a Basque-American watching these sports, which we see only every so often in typically heavy doses, is that in the Basque Country, this is every day stuff.  As such, they don’t have such concentrated showings of it; festivals might have a few sporting exhibitions, but not hours worth.  My uncle was getting a little bored with it, though he of course got into it whenever things got exciting.  On my other side were some non-Basques who I guess had thought they’d check out some local color or something.  It was interesting and a bit odd hearing their commentary.  They sort of mocked what they saw, commenting on how simplistic the sporting events were, comparing them to the “sophistication” of American sports.  It showed they didn’t have much of a true idea of what the Basque Country is about and how this is one slice of the sporting scene in the Basque Country, maybe somewhat analogous to a rodeo in the US West.

On Friday, after attending NABO’s Annual Convention at which the New Mexico Euskal Etxea was officially accepted as a member, we headed to the Basque Block to check out the festivities.  And it was completely packed, from one end of the block to the other!  I must imagine that this was the best attended Jaialdi to date!  There were so many people that it was difficult to maneuver through the crowd.  It was that way Thursday night as well, though during the day, the heat added a level of discomfort.  But, people were singing, dancing, drinking and eating — generally having a wonderful time.  Again, I wondered about the demographics of the crowd.  It felt like there were just as many people who maybe had no Basque ties but were looking for a good way to spend the weekend.  This is a testament to the reputation of the Basques in Boise.

During the weekend, especially during the day, festivities moved to the Fair Grounds.  The official opening ceremonies were on Saturday morning and, as a representative of NMEE, I was asked to carry the New Mexico flag in the procession.  While waiting for things to start, I was able to wander a little behind the scenes, where the various dance groups were organizing themselves.  While adults shepherded children and tried to get them lined up in some semblance of an order, some of the groups did last minute practices of their dances.  Compared to when I was a kid doing these dances, there were a lot more groups with a lot more different costumes.  Especially noticeable were the girls’ dressed in blue, in contrast to the typical red, black, and white.  The opening ceremonies tried to bring together all of the groups who were to perform over the weekend, including the Klika from Chino, a number of groups from the Basque Country, and of course all of the dance groups from the US.  It was an awesome beginning to the weekend.

After that, all of my official duties were over, so I just enjoyed Jaialdi as much as I could.  My family joined me when they were able, and overall we had a wonderful time. This year, the vendor booths were moved inside to escape the heat and that was a superb change.  I remember last time that the heat (it reached 100 every day) and the wind kicking up the dirt at the fair grounds sometimes made being outside a bit unpleasant.  By moving the vendors indoors, they made that part much better than it had been.  A number of friends were manning booths, so it was great chatting with them, especially a few who I had only known before via Internet, not in person.

Truly, the best part of Jaialdi is seeing old friends and meeting new ones.  We ran into a lot of friends from our days in Seattle, who have a group that is going very strong, thanks in large part to the influx of new Basques into the area, who I had the great pleasure to meet.  We also ran into Joseba Etxarri, who is still a big fixture in many Basque festivals in the US.  One notable absence was Aita Tillouis, who passed away recently, but who was always a big presence in so many Basque gatherings.  But, it is the friends that make Jaialdi such a wonderful experience and, I have to admit, one of the things I lamented just a little.  Jaialdi has grown so big, it is less intimate, with so many people that you don’t bump into a friend around every corner, at least not as much.  Maybe for people who live in Boise it isn’t that way, but it was a little more that way for me than it had been in years past.  That said, it was still an awesome weekend and I’ll definitely be attending the next one in 2015.

Admin

Doing some “house cleaning”

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I’ve got a lot of things I want to write about, including our time at Jaialdi, my uncle in Spain, and more.  But, I’ve also been working on finally updating the main index pages (the pages that are linked from the menus on the left), both updating the look and fixing all of the bad links (which are numerous).  I’ve gotten two done, Euskara and Diaspora.  I’d welcome any thoughts/comments/criticisms people have.

Nor Naiz Gu Gara

Nor Naiz, Gu Gara: Gonzalo Aranguren

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Nor Naiz, Gu Gara (Who I Am, We Are) is a series aiming to explore the meaning of Basque Identity around the world, both within Euskal Herria as well as in the diaspora.  For an introduction to the series, look here, and for a list of the previous entries, look here.

What does being Basque mean to me?

This is a question applicable to a citizen of any country, whether American, French, Italian… It is a sense of identity and closeness to the local culture and traditions. To give an example, last weekend I went with an association from Iparralde (Itxas Begia) to participate in a representation of the way iron mineral used to be transported from Somorrostro, in Bizkaia, with sailboats all the way to Askain in Lapurdi, and from there all the way to Urdax in Nafarroa. Once in Urdax, the monks used to buy the mineral because it was considered to be of very high quality. During the event the language spoken by the people from Iparralde, Bizkaia and Nafarroa was Basque, and the whole celebration was part of a common culture and tradition. I felt a sense of belonging and enjoyment that is unique because I feel attached to the culture. I only speak a little bit of Basque but understand it quite well. Basque identity is not exclusive to the Basque speakers.

Gonzalo was born in Bilbao in the Clinica Aranguren in 1966, his father being from Bilbao and his mother from San Francisco, California of Irish origin. Her ancestors arrived in SF in December 1849. Gonzalo was raised in a Basque/American family and he previously lived in the USA for 7 years and 1 year in London. He has worked in the private sector but for the last 4 years he has worked for NGOs in India, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Argentina and Honduras, and in the headquarters in Donostia since his first child was born. He am also a translator of English / Spanish and works as a free lance for various business.

Nor Naiz Gu Gara

Nor Naiz, Gu Gara: Pedro Oiarzabal

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Nor Naiz, Gu Gara (Who I Am, We Are) is a series aiming to explore the meaning of Basque Identity around the world, both within Euskal Herria as well as in the diaspora.  For an introduction to the series, look here, and for a list of the previous entries, look here.

The Trees, The Forest, and The Roots: On The Basque Global Identity
By Pedro J. Oiarzabal

On not seeing the forest for the trees

The study of the elusive and complex concept of identity, and particularly of that of migrants and their descendants, has attracted the attention of many scholars from a variety of disciplines. Common knowledge suggests that all individuals have their own unique sense of identity. Consequently, there might be as many identities as individuals. This might be the case for those who identify as Basque, in the homeland as well as in the diaspora. Our understanding of Basqueness is shaped, for instance, by our own life stories, socialization processes, socio-historical contexts, and ideological traditions. Indeed, there are as many ways to experience and express a single collective identity as the individuals that are part of such social group. However, this fact cannot force us to ignore the existence of collective identities such as of the Basque.

That is to say, in our world-spanning Basque forest, individual trees should not obstruct the vision of the forest, but, instead, they should enrich it. Paraphrasing a popular saying, it is not the forest that explains the trees, but the trees are the ones that give meaning to the forest; and even more, the roots of the trees are those that maintain alive the forest. The roots are, to a certain extent, our collective memory as Basques. In a sense, our collective memory and shared sense of being and belonging provide a solid guide to interpret our present world. Could we imagine ourselves without memory? Let´s think for a moment that we lose our memory; then, let´s ask ourselves who am I? Who are we?

Pedro J. Oiarzabal was born and raised in Bilbao and has spent much of his life between the Basque Country, Ireland and the United States. He holds a PhD in Basque Studies-Political Science from the University of Nevada, Reno, a MPhil in Economics and Social Sciences from Queen’s University of Belfast (N. Ireland), and BA in History from the University of Deusto (Bilbao). Currently, Oiarzabal is a Research Scholar on International Migration at the University of Deusto, Bilbao. His research examines diaspora creation and diaspora interaction with information and communication technologies as well as the meaning of identity in both homeland and diaspora realities, with particular emphasis on the Basque case. Among his publications are La Identidad Vasca en el Mundo (2005), A Candle in the Night: Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, 1967-2007 (2007), Gardeners of Identity: Basques in the San Francisco Bay Area (2009), and Diasporas in the New Media Age: Identity, Politics, and Community (2010).

Books, Euskara

Basque ABC book?

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On the way to work this morning, I heard a story on NPR about a woman of Puerto Rican heritage from north Philly that wrote an ABC book from her neighborhood’s perspective.  It got me thinking what would an ABC book from a Basque-American perspective look like?  Some of my thoughts are below, any others?

A is for Aitxitxa and Amuma, who left the Old Country to find a better life.

B is for Basajaun, lord of the forest, and the first blacksmith.

C is for Chorizo, the Basque hotdog!