Boise to celebrate all things Basque

BOISE – The Basque language was common on the downtown streets of Idaho’s capital when Florencio “Pancho” Aldape arrived in 1935 following a 13-day journey from northern Spain, first by ship across the Atlantic, then on a train from New York.

Aldape, now 84, spent his first winter in a little brick boarding house that’s now a tour destination in Boise’s so-called “Basque Block.” For three summers, he herded sheep with his father in the hills north of here. He became an American, went to World War II, married.

But he never forgot his homeland: “Euskal Herria,” the Basque Country, located where the spine of the Pyrenees Mountains separates Spain from France.

“I went back five times,” says Aldape, recalling Durango Vizcaya, the medieval town on the left bank of northern Spain’s Ibaizabal River where he spent his first 14 years.

Starting next week, Aldape and about 35,000 other people, some Basque since birth, some “Basque” for only a few hours, will celebrate the traditions of the ethnic minority at Jaialdi, or “Big Festival.” The five-day party, held once every five years, begins July 27 and includes traditional sports and cultural events including folk dancing, historical presentations and religious services for the largely Catholic Basque community.

Much of the world familiar with Basques knows of the radical separatist group known by its acronym ETA, whose members have killed more than 850 persons and injured hundreds of others since it began lethal attacks aimed at the Spanish government in the early 1960s. The Jaialdi festival doubles as an outreach effort to show that Basque culture runs deeper than just three letters.

“Jaialdi wasn’t organized as a direct response to bad press surrounding ETA,” said William Douglass, who led the Basque Studies program at the University of Nevada-Reno for 33 years. “But clearly, Basque Americans, like Basques in the Old World …, welcome the opportunity to present a cultural event that transcends political issues.”

Some 15,000 Basques live in southwestern Idaho and make up the third-largest Basque population in the world, after an enclave in Argentina and the group’s homeland on the Spanish-French border.

Idaho gets its strong Basque population from a wave of immigration in the last century, when many like Aldape and his father started out as shepherds.

Many came to escape stifling poverty, while others fled the rule of dictator Francisco Franco, who tried to erase all signs of nationalism by forbidding public speaking of Euskara, the Basque language, during his 36-year rule starting in 1939.

For this year’s Jaialdi, Juan Jose Ibarretxe Markuartu, the leader of Spain’s semiautonomous Basque region, will visit Boise, where he’ll meet with Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne – as well as Mayor Dave Bieter, who is considered the first person of Basque descent to be elected leader of a U.S. city.

In recent years, Basques in Boise and in Spain have forged closer ties.

In February, Bieter traveled to Spain, where he was honored for his work in 2002 to get state lawmakers to call for Basques’ right to self-determination in their homeland. In addition, the Basque government recently pledged $150,000 to help start a Basque Studies minor at Boise State University.

“What we’re trying to do is educate the rest of the world, that indeed there is a Basque society, Basque culture, Basque literature, Basque art,” said Gloria Totoricaguena, a professor of political science and Basque migration studies at UNR who grew up in Boise. “That’s what the Basque country is about.”

For next week’s event, about 500 people will come to Boise from what local Basques still call “the Old Country.” Some will stay for a week, some for a month, says Gina Welsh, a spokeswoman for the event.

In addition, Basque communities in Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and California will attend, including dance troupes, choirs, musicians and athletes. Basque sports are agricultural in nature, and include weightlifting, dragging, carrying, woodchopping and tug-of-war.

Dave Eiguren, from an old Boise Basque family, has helped organize the festival since it started in 1987. There have also been festivals in 1990, 1995 and 2000.

Jaialdi, Eiguren says, is one way the Basque community can help reinvigorate its traditions – especially as members of the first generation of immigrants to come to the United States age.

Aldape, for instance, has five great-grandchildren in the Oinkari Dancers, the Boise-based Basque dance group that’ll share the stage with dancers from the Old Country.