My mom’s dad’s parents were both from the Basque Country. Blas Telleria was from Mutiloa, Gipuzkoa while Ines Eiguren was from Lekeitio, Bizkaia. They met in Jordan Valley, Oregon, where they had both made their way to find a better life. Blas was born in 1877. Mutiloa is a very small town, even smaller than […]
By Koldo San Sebastián This article originally appeared in Spanish on EuskoNews. Translated, with the aid of Google Translate, with permission of the author. Jordan Valley, Oregon includes the village of the same name and the nearby territory in which it is located. It is halfway between Boise, Idaho, and Winnemucca, Nevada. As Joseph H. […]
The United States has a thriving Basque community, driven primarily, though not exclusively, by many years of immigration to the US West. California is the state that the most Basques call home while Boise, Idaho, is the city with the largest number of Basques. However, it is tiny Winnemucca in northern Nevada – with only […]
This article originally appeared in Spanish at El Diario. You can find all of the English versions of the Fighting Basques series here. The invasion of Burma (now Myanmar) – in the hands of the British Empire since 1886 – by the Empire of the Rising Sun at the end of December 1941 was another […]
As so strongly depicted in “Fighting Basques,” an initiative by the Sancho de Beurko Association, Basque-Americans have always played an important role in the armed services of the United States. They served in all branches of the military and served their country, often the adopted country of their immigrant parents, with honor and distinction. However, […]
I was going through some old papers and found a few obituaries and editorials I’d kept about my grandpa, Joe Telleria. I wrote about him way back in 2012 on the 20th anniversary of his death — about how he died while I was visiting the Basque Country for the first time. Anyways, I noticed […]
The American West was a strong draw for many young Basques seeking opportunity. Jordan Valley, Oregon, was one of those areas that provided opportunity for young Basques. Jordan Valley first attracted miners around 1863 when gold was discovered. The first Basques arrived soon after, in 1890, as part of the sheep industry. So many Basques […]
Anyone who has been to the Basque Country and visited any of the villages that dot the coast and the valleys between those peaks shrouded in mythology certainly knows the importance of the fronton to the Basque people. The plaza of most any town is often surrounded by the three corner-stones of Basque life: the […]
Sheep were a big business in southwest Idaho/eastern Oregon/northern Nevada. As a result, a lot of Basques settled in the high desert of the area. Sheep brought my dad and my mom’s grandparents to America. My mom’s aitxitxa, Blas Telleria, and amuma, Ines Eiguren, both settled in Jordan Valley, OR, a small town just on […]
