Basque Diaspora Research Articles

The Basque Diaspora before Paul: Deferred Identities, Food and Music for a Transdisciplinary Approach to Basque Studies

The Basque Diaspora before Paul: Deferred Identities, Food and Music for a Transdisciplinary Approach to Basque Studies

Public diplomacy by educational and cultural exchange programs

The diaspora communities can help in the relations among the host country and the country of origin in many aspects. One of the ways in which diasporas can have possible results is as public diplomacy actors. In this study, we will concentrate on the case of the Basque diaspora living in Idaho (USA) and how, thanks to a exchange program that was first organized in the year 1974, transnational networks have been created among the Basque Country and the Idaho region. This study shows how exchange programs could work as public diplomacy programs, and help in the creation of a long-term relation among the USA and the Basque Country.

News from the Old Country: Media Consumption by the Basque Diaspora in the United States

This study analyzes the ways in which the Basque diaspora community in the United States consumes news media from their home origin. Using survey data collected from over 400 Basque-Americans with varying generations (first, second, third, etc.), we explore the ways in which surveyed individuals consume media from their ancestral territory of origin, in this case, the Basque Country of Spain and France. This research is exploratory and descriptive of the media habits and behavior of individuals with Basque origins. We find that significant shifts in media consumption occur between first generation immigrants and those beyond the second generation. As we move across generations, we observe that individuals shift from engagement with home-origin media to engagement with Basque cultural activities, such as dancing clubs. Our study suggests that the importance of digital media from the homeland is growing, but that most consumption of information by the Basque diaspora is through social networks. Our findings also suggest that, among those who continue to consume home-origin media, it is mainly through readership of national newspapers (in this case, from Spain) rather than local newspapers (from the Basque Country). This article enriches our understanding of the media habits of the Basque diaspora and raises questions for future research about the effect of transnational media consumption on the political, social and economic behavior of immigrants in the United States.

News from the Old Country: Media Consumption by the Basque Diaspora in the United States

This study analyzes the ways in which the Basque diaspora community in the United States consumes news media from their home origin. Using survey data collected from over 400 Basque-Americans with varying generations (first, second, third, etc.), we explore the ways in which surveyed individuals consume media from their ancestral territory of origin, in this case, the Basque Country of Spain and France. This research is exploratory and descriptive of the media habits and behavior of individuals with Basque origins. We find that significant shifts in media consumption occur between first generation immigrants and those beyond the second generation. As we move across generations, we observe that individuals shift from engagement with home-origin media to engagement with Basque cultural activities, such as dancing clubs. Our study suggests that the importance of digital media from the homeland is growing, but that most consumption of information by the Basque diaspora is through social networks. Our findings also suggest that, among those who continue to consume home-origin media, it is mainly through readership of national newspapers (in this case, from Spain) rather than local newspapers (from the Basque Country). This article enriches our understanding of the media habits of the Basque diaspora and raises questions for future research about the effect of transnational media consumption on the political, social and economic behavior of immigrants in the United States.

Diasporas and the role of social media on militant/political activities: The Basque diaspora in Argentina in the spotlight

Abstract The role of politically motivated and engaged diasporas go beyond the mere reinforcement of state nationalism or states itself, but also promotes and supports sub-national/sub-state ethnic groups’ agendas, both reinforcing and weakening states’ nationalist agendas. Sub-national/sub-state political groups, such as of Kurds, Uyghur, Tamil minorities, among others, tend, in many cases, to find support over its diaspora to advance a specific political agenda (such as greater autonomy, independence, etc). Also, such groups and related diasporas appropriate the Internet as a tool for political engagement, communication, financing, lobby and even moral support. In this article, I seek to understand and conceptualize such appropriation(s) having the Basque case (focusing on its diaspora in Argentina) as the main object of analysis.

Face to Face

I draw on my experience of painting portraits to reflect on the Basque diaspora today. Whilst living in different countries, I have painted Basque individuals that I have met through Basque organizations, through common friends in the Basque Country, or through “non-Basque” people who introduce us presuming that as fellow Basques we have something in common. We are thus brought together through the networks that typically define a diaspora. At the same time, Basque identity in the diaspora, as I have come to understand - and paint - it, is a personal and contextual experience. In this article, I offer further - textual - information about the individuals I originally intended to just portray in paint, as part of the effort to render more richly today’s plural picture of the Basque diaspora.

Transcontinental Reflections on the American West: Words, Images, Sounds beyond Borders ed. by Ángel Chaparro Sainz and Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo

Reviewed by: Transcontinental Reflections on the American West: Words, Images, Sounds beyond Borders ed. by Ángel Chaparro Sainz and Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo Stephen J. Mexal Ángel Chaparro Sainz and Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo, eds., Transcontinental Reflections on the American West: Words, Images, Sounds beyond Borders. London: PortalEditions, 2015. 424 pp. Paper, $22.90. For scholars of the American literary West, many of whom have long been invested in theories of borderless or "postregional" spaces, the events of 2016 must have felt like running full-tilt into an invisible wall. After England's vote to close its borders to the European Union or Donald Trump's election pledge to "build a wall" along America's southern boundary, it seems while scholars may be done with borders, borders are not yet done with us. Yet Ángel Chaparro Sainz and Amaia Ibarraran Bigalondo's edited collection of essays provides an opportunity for a global group of scholars to study the American West from a perspective that strives to be, as their subtitle has it, "beyond borders." For Sainz and Bigalondo, the borders in question refer not just to nation or region but to generic and disciplinary borders as well. The essays are united by this expansive sense of boundary crossing. It is in this spirit that Jesus Ángel González sketches the generic border crossings that connect Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled fiction, the Western genre, and the many international film adaptations of Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest; that Krista Comer explores the theoretical borders between critical regionalism, feminist theory, and feminist activism; and that Luis Díaz Pulido studies the permeable cultural borders between America's Bush-era response to terrorism, Richard Slotkin's frontier myth, and the television program 24. The editors have assembled a global band of scholars. Many of the contributors are affiliated with the University of the Basque Country, some are at other universities in Spain, and still others are located in France, Italy, and the United States. Building on Neil Campbell's 2008 The Rhizomatic West (which is cited in nearly a third of the essays here), the contributors repeatedly make the case that the American literary West belongs not just to one type of text or nation. Instead, it is the product and purview of the entire world. But given such clear internationalist aspirations, the book is somewhat hampered by some missed opportunities. In defining [End Page 226] "borders" quite as broadly as it does—here, the generic boundary between a novel and a film is given roughly the same weight as the boundary between two nations—the book misses a chance to explore more fully the ways in which the American West has always been global. Some chapters do strive to uncover a legacy of transcontinental transmission. David Fenimore's chapter on Horace Greeley, Karl Marx, and the European communitarian influence on nineteenth-century western settlement is particularly strong. Similarly, Monika Madinabeitia's chapter on the history of the Basque diaspora and its connection to contemporary Basque music and identity in the American West is especially engaging. On the whole, though, the book stands as an important reminder that the academic study of the American literary and cultural West is not a small discipline, consigned to the dusty corners of a few regions of the United States, but rather a large one: the product and the subject of an expansive, interconnected world. Throughout, its contributors are tireless in their investigations of the porous disciplinary, generic, and political borders that limn the culture of the American West. Stephen J. Mexal California State University, Fullerton Copyright © 2017 Western Literature Association

Different Evolutionary History for Basque Diaspora Populations in USA and Argentina Unveiled by Mitochondrial DNA Analysis

The Basque Diaspora in Western USA and Argentina represents two populations which have maintained strong Basque cultural and social roots in a completely different geographic context. Hence, they provide an exceptional opportunity to study the maternal genetic legacy from the ancestral Basque population and assess the degree of genetic introgression from the host populations in two of the largest Basque communities outside the Basque Country. For this purpose, we analyzed the complete mitochondrial DNA control region of Basque descendants living in Western USA (n = 175) and in Argentina (n = 194). The Diaspora populations studied here displayed a genetic diversity in their European maternal input which was similar to that of the Basque source populations, indicating that not important founder effects would have occurred. Actually, the genetic legacy of the Basque population still prevailed in their present-day maternal pools, by means of a haplogroup distribution similar to the source population characterized by the presence of autochthonous Basque lineages, such as U5b1f1a and J1c5c1. However, introgression of non-Basque lineages, mostly Native American, has been observed in the Diaspora populations, particularly in Argentina, where the quick assimilation of the newcomers would have favored a wider admixture with host populations. In contrast, a longer isolation of the Diaspora groups in USA, because of language and cultural differences, would have limited the introgression of local lineages. This study reveals important differences in the maternal evolutionary histories of these Basque Diaspora populations, which have to be taken into consideration in forensic and medical genetic studies.

Repositioning Resistance


 
 On 26 April 1937, German bombers attacked the civilian population in the Basque market town of Guernica. The event has become synonymous with the brutality of the Spanish Civil War, but its impact on the Basque diaspora has not been the subject of detailed investigation. Large numbers of Basques emigrated to live in north Queensland, and the overwhelming majority can be traced to the hills surrounding Guernica. Those living in Australia only became aware of the atrocity over time, but the symbolic importance of Guernica increased over the subsequent decades as hundreds more Basques arrived in Queensland's north. The bombing itself was traumatic, but it was understood in the context of an emigration and historical injustice wrought by Spain's Nationalist dictatorship.
 

Diaspora Basques and Online Social Networks: An Analysis of Users of Basque Institutional Diaspora Groups on Facebook

This paper presents the results of original user-based research regarding the Basque diaspora presence on social network sites (SNSs). It is the first academic investigation on the users of Basque diaspora-association groups on Facebook, the largest SNS on the Web. It focuses on the online and offline dimensions of the Basque institutional diaspora presence on the World Wide Web. By concentrating on the Basque diaspora case, I draw attention to the implications that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have on international migrant diasporas, with particular emphasis on how migrant associations and their members perform in a bid to accomplish their activities and goals. The present work opens new venues for future multi- and interdisciplinary analysis as well as comparative and longitudinal studies that could clearly be of interest to researchers, scholars and students of migration and ICTs.

Y-STR variation in the Basque diaspora in the Western USA: evolutionary and forensic perspectives

Individuals of Basque origin migrated in large numbers to the Western USA in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the flow continued with less intensity during the last century. The European source population, that of the Basque Country, has long been a cultural and geographical isolate. Previous studies have demonstrated that Y-STR frequencies of Basques are different from those of other Spanish and European populations [1]. The Basque diaspora in the Western USA is a recent migration, but the founder effect and the incorporation of new American Y chromosomes into the paternal genetic pool of the Basque diaspora could have influenced its genetic structure and could thus have practical implications for forensic genetics. To check for genetic substructure among the European source and Basque diaspora populations and determine the most suitable population database for the Basque diaspora in the Western USA, we have analysed the haplotype distribution of 17 Y-STRs in both populations. We have found that the Basque diaspora in the Western USA largely conserve the Y chromosome lineage characteristic of the autochthonous European Basque population with no statistically significant differences. This implies that a common 17 Y-STR Basque population database could be used to calculate identification or kinship parameters regardless of whether the Basque individuals are from the European Basque Country or from the Basque diaspora in the Western USA.

X-STR admixture analysis of two populations of the Basque Diaspora in America

The Basque Diaspora began to spread worldwide in the last century, mainly due to wars and first-born privileges over family land. The aim of this study was to explore the genetic composition and admixture of two populations of the Basque Diaspora located in Argentina and the United States. Samples were collected from individuals with Basque descendency living in the California, Nevada and Reno, United States and Buenos Aires, Argentina. PCR amplification was performed using GEP-ISFG X-STR decaplex primers. No deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium were observed. Admixture analysis revealed a high genetic contribution (33.3 ± 1.9%) from Buenos Aires population to the admixed population of the Basque Diaspora in Argentina. A high genetic contribution (21 ± 1.9%) from US Hispanic population was determined for the admixed population of the Basque Diaspora in the United States.

Basque Diaspora in the USA and Language Maintenance

The Basques first immigrated on a large scale to the USA during the Gold Rush of 1848. After immigrating to the USA, they settled in pockets throughout the West, especially in California, Nevada and Idaho, and it is currently estimated that more than 35,000 Basque–Americans live in these three states. This represents one of the largest concentrations of Basques outside the Basque Country. Although Basque identity and culture have been preserved thanks to Basque Clubs scattered throughout these states, little is known about their language proficiency and language attitudes. This paper looks into this question. The participants in the study were 80 Basque–Americans who completed a questionnaire aimed at examining their language attitudes towards Basque, Spanish, French and English, as well as their command of these languages. Thirty of the participants were also interviewed in order to research the issues in greater depth. The results show that, although the attitudes held towards the different languages are in general very positive, the attitudes towards Basque warrant particular attention, even though language attitudes and language competence are far from comparable.

Diasporas as Non-Central Government Actors in Foreign Policy: The Trajectory of Basque Paradiplomacy

Today's Basque diaspora includes nearly 200 Basque communities in 22 countries around the world. This article addresses the political culture and institutional relations between regional governments and their ethnic diasporas. Quantitative and qualitative data highlight the Basque Autonomous Community regional government's laws, programs, subsidies, and voting rights granted to their diaspora community institutions and individuals. I argue that non-central government actors are flexing their formidable capacity to direct their own mutually beneficial transnational relations.

Gloria P. Totoricagüena. <italic>Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora.</italic> (The Basque Series.) Reno: University of Nevada Press. 2004. Pp. xix, 273. $39.95

Gloria P. Totoricagüena. Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora. (The Basque Series.) Reno: University of Nevada Press. 2004. Pp. xix, 273. $39.95 Get access Totoricagüena Gloria P.. Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora. (The Basque Series.) Reno: University of Nevada Press. 2004. Pp. xix, 273. $39.95. Angel Smith Angel Smith University of Leeds Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 110, Issue 2, April 2005, Pages 439–440, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/110.2.439 Published: 01 April 2005

Reviews of Books:Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora Gloria P. Totoricaguena

Reviews of Books:Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora Gloria P. Totoricaguena

La disputada cronología de la nacionalidad: fuerismo, identidad vasca y nación en el siglo XIX

Ethnicity could feed in several forms and ways the process of nation building during the nineteenth century. The Spanish-Basque case is a good historical proof of it. «Fuerismo», the political discourse which mainly contributed to build 19 th Century Basque identity, was an ethno-regionalist movement which shaped a ethno-civic identity discourse which served as a vehicle for the construction of a national identification, which was first referred to Spain and, since the end of the century, also to the Basque Country. The ocean was not a border, but rather a bridge in this process. Basque diaspora also became a social space where a new collective identity was built. This discourse was aimed at enabling the better integration of Basque migrants into the new American nation-states during the age of the masses. The key element in this discourse was ethnicity. However, ethnicity was not primarily defined in primordial terms, but rather in instrumental terms, as a way to incorporate overlapping collective identities to the Basque one. This constitutes the main factor which helps reconstructing the chronology of Basque nationality in the modern times.

Identity, culture, and politics in the Basque diaspora

Identity, culture, and politics in the Basque diaspora

Wine is not Alcohol. Patterns of Socialization and Wine and Alcohol Consumption among Children and Youngsters in the Basque Diaspora

Alcohol consumption, as an integral part of the wider frame of food practices, is also a social manifestation. It is the aim of this paper to analyze the role of wine as a drink and as a social element in the Basque diaspora. Emphasis will be put on the values attached to its consumption as a drink, by children and youths, and on its social function.

Portraits of Basques in the New World

This collection of essays provides an overview of the varied Basque experiences throughout the American Far West. It covers four centuries in three parts: the Basque diaspora in the New World; immigration and assimilation; and modern Basques.