Basque Immigrants and Nevada's Sheep Industry: Geopolitics and the Making of an Agricultural Workforce, 1880–1954

Abstract

For decades, historians of the American West have problematized Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis in myriad ways. Coalescing in a group often labeled New Western historians, these individuals found holes in Turner's interpretation of the American West as a place where hardy pioneers constructed democratic institutions, lived independently, and assimilated into one “American” community. For his part in confronting Turner's view, Iker Saitua “challenges the idea of melting-pot homogeneity in the American West by examining the Basque immigrant experience in Nevada as a complex collectivity in a complex geographical place” (13). In so doing, Saitua examines the relatively unknown story of Basque immigration to and settlement in Nevada to demonstrate that we still have much to learn about the region and those who reside in it.As a native of the Basque country and the Basque Government Postdoctoral Fellow at both the University of the Basque Country and the University of California, Riverside, Saitua is intimately familiar with this story. The author organizes the study by separating it into three distinct parts. Saitua begins by relating the first waves of Basque immigration to the United States in the late nineteenth century, transitions into how the Basque community became a fixture in Nevada before the outbreak of World War II, and closes by looking at how labor shortages compelled American recruitment of Basque workers following the war. Each part explores how they faced distinct challenges to establish themselves in the United States. Nothing proved easy, but perhaps the most daunting issue that Saitua covers is the racialization of Basque immigrants in the aftermath of World War I and following the Johnson-Reid Act of 1924 that constructed quotas for immigrants coming to the United States. As Saitua tells it, the Basque community in the West proved largely successful in finding a niche in the Nevada ranching economy as knowledgeable and dedicated sheepherders. Unfortunately, while their contribution provided opportunities to earn acceptance by and respect from their employers and others in the state, the community became susceptible to the volatile anti-immigrant fervor that erupted in the 1920s and continued into the 1930s.World War II changed that, however. The restriction on Basque immigration left the sheep industry desperate for laborers, and that desperation compelled many Nevadans to fight to reform the restrictive quota acts. Most notably, Senator Patrick McCarran lobbied hard to ease restrictions and open opportunities for Basques to immigrate and resolve labor shortages. The consummate anti-communist, McCarran even met with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in 1949 and advised him to emphasize Spain's resistance to communism to improve relations between the two nations. His efforts paid off in the end with both the lessening of restrictions in 1951 and the normalization of relations between Spain and the United States with the 1953 Pact of Madrid, an agreement that encouraged economic ties and “indirectly facilitated the recruitment of Basque immigrant labor” that continued beyond 1953 (249).There is much to appreciate in this book. Notably, Saitua engages labor history, conservation and land use, foreign policy, and whiteness, and he clearly ties those distinct bodies of literature back to his study of Basque community. He has taken a relatively unknown group of people and presented an exemplary case study of how the trials and tribulations of a specific community of immigrants in Nevada can help us better understand the ways that monumental shifts—the development of an agricultural industry in the West, anti-immigration trends in the 1920s and 1930s, and the rise of production demands during World War II—impacted peoples in the West. In the process, he achieves his primary goal of using the Basque story to expand the historiography of the New Western History and counter Turner's dated notion of Americanization on the frontier.Two minor issues detract from the study. First, there is no conclusion. Each chapter works well on its own, but a short conclusion that included a summary of main themes as well as the author's contributions, or perhaps even a mention to how the Basque community fared after 1954, would refocus the book. Second, it is sometimes difficult to understand the impact of these shifts on the Basque community itself. It might help had the author grounded some of these developments with a better representation of community numbers, or how they were viewed beyond Nevada, or whether the community remains viable.Minor complaints such as these will do little to detract from the book's contributions. Saitua adeptly weaves together several complicated bodies of literature to shine a light on a largely unknown story of community development and adaptation in the American West.