Basque Americans

By William A. Douglass and John Beierle

Bascos, Eskualdunak, Euskaldunak, Vascos.

The European Basque homeland is in the western Pyrenees and straddles the French-Spanish border. Although frequently designated as either French or Spanish Basques, the Basque people constitute one of Europe's most distinctive ethnic groups in their own right. The seven traditional regions within the Basque Country, further distinguished by dialectical differences in spoken Basque, provide subethnic distinctions within the Basque population. Basques entered North America as either Spanish or French nationals, but Basque Americans invoke Basqueness as their primary ethnic identity. There are small numbers of Basques in British Columbia, Quebec, and the eastern seaboard in Canada. Basques are present in every state of the United States but are concentrated in California, Idaho, and Nevada. Basques are particularly noted for an identification with sheepherding and are therefore present to some degree in the open-range livestock districts of all thirteen states of the American West. Florida, New York, and Connecticut have significant Basque populations as well.

The Basque Canadian population as such has not been enumerated, but probably numbers no more than 2,000 to 3,000 individuals. The 1980 U.S. census estimated the Basque American population at slightly more than 40,000. The three largest concentrations by state include California (15,530), Idaho (4,332), and Nevada (3,378). The Basques of North America are primarily rural and small-town dwellers, although there are urban concentrations in New York City (port of entry), Miami, Greater San Francisco, Greater Los Angeles, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Boise, and Reno.

First-generation Basque immigrants are usually fluent in Basque (EUSKERA), an agglutinative language, employing the Roman alphabet but with no known affinity with any other tongue. Basque immigrants are also fluent in Spanish and/or French. Basque Canadians and Basque Americans are more likely to be bilingual in Basque and English (French in the case of Quebec) than to retain their parents' fluency in Spanish or French. It is rare for the second generation of New World-born individuals to retain fluency in a second language. Rather, they are fully assimilated linguistically into the American mainstream.

Basques, as Europe's earliest and most efficient whalers, may have entered North America prior to the voyages of Columbus. There is documentation of Basque whaling and codfishing activity along the Labrador coast by the early sixteenth century and evidence of Basque loan words in some of the Atlantic coastal Canadian Native American languages. Canadian archivists and archeologists have discovered a sixteenth century Basque whaling station (used seasonally) and sunken whaling ship at Red Bay, Labrador. Place names such as Port-aux-Basques, Placentia, and Biscay Bay also testify to a Basque presence in Canadian coastal waters. This activity remained intense through the eighteenth century and lasted well into the nineteenth. With the exception of this maritime involvement, the Basque presence in Canada remains virtually unstudied. Some French Basques became established in Quebec as part of that area's overall French immigration. In recent years there has been a Basque festival in the town of Trois Pistoles. In the twentieth century, a small colony of Basques (associated with the timber industry) has emerged in western British Columbia and several of its families have relocated to the Vancouver area.

Basques entered the western United States as part of the Spanish colonial endeavor. Several administrators, soldiers, explorers, and missionaries in the American southwest and Spanish California were Basques. After Mexican independence and subsequent American annexation of the area, there was a renewal of Basque immigration as part of the California gold rush. Many of the prospectors came from southern South America, where Basques were the established sheepmen on the pampas. Some saw an opportunity to repeat in California a sheep-raising pattern under frontier conditions. By 1860, there were established Basque sheep outfits roaming the public lands in southern California. In the 1870s they spread throughout California's central valleys, and had expanded into parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and western Nevada. By the first decade of the twentieth century, Basques were present in the open-range districts of all thirteen western states. The Basque sheepherder was the preferred employee in Basque and non-Basque owned sheep outfits alike. Restrictive immigration legislation in the 1920s, with its antisouthern-European bias, severely limited Basque immigration into the United States, and by the 1940s, the Basque American community was evolving away from its Old World cultural roots. But a labor shortage during World War II and an unwillingness of Americans to endure the privations of the sheepherding way of life prompted the U.S. Government to exempt prospective Basque sheepherders from immigration quotas. Between 1950 and 1975, several thousand Basques entered the United States on three-year contracts. The general decline of the sheep industry over the past fifteen years, coupled with full recovery of the Spanish and French economies has all but interdicted the immigration of Basques into the American West. Today there are fewer than one hundred Basques herding sheep in the United States.

A secondary source of twentieth century Basque immigration derived from the Basque game of jai alai. Nuclei of professional players who have married United States citizens or otherwise gained permanent residency have formed around the legalized jai alai frontons in Florida, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Political refugees form a third modern, if modest, stream of Basque immigration in North America, as some individuals rejected Franco's Spain and others fled Castro's Cuba.

Basque involvement in sheepherding is limited to the arid and semi-arid open range districts of the American West, where sheep husbandry entails transhumance - that is, the herds are wintered on the valley floors and then trailed into adjacent or distant mountain ranges for summer pasturage. The annual trek might involve covering as much as five hundred miles on foot, although today the animals are more likely to be trucked if the distance between summer and winter range is considerable. For the herder, while on the winter range, home is a sheep wagon containing little more than a bunk, table, and stove. The wagon is moved about the desert winter range with either horses or a four-wheel drive vehicle. In the summer months the herder lives in a tipi camped along stream beds in high mountain canyons. He is visited every several days by a camptender who brings him supplies on muleback or by pickup truck. The herder's life is characterized by extreme isolation, the loneliness being relieved only by the camptender's brief visit, the portable radio, a few magazines and books, and the occasional letter from fiance or family. Some former sheepherders acquired their own ranch properties. These were established holdings and therefore have no architectural features that might be regarded as uniquely Basque. Most small towns of the open range districts have one or more Basque hotels, which are likely located within sight of the railroad station (to facilitate the travel of newly arrived herders from Europe). Again, they tend to be purchased rather than constructed by their proprietors and are therefore largely consonant with western American small-town architecture, although some of the hotels have added a fronton or handball court. The typical hotel contains a bar; dining room, where meals are served family-style at long tables to boarders and casual guests alike; and a second floor of sleeping rooms usually reserved for permanent boarders, sheepherders in town for a brief visit, vacation, or employment layoff, and herders in transit to an employer.

The Basque fishermen in Canada were seasonal sojourners, who crossed the Atlantic to hunt whales and fish for cod. The former were rendered into oil while the latter were salted for transport back to Europe. In the United States, Basques, as much as any and more than most immigrant groups, have been identified with a single industry--sheep husbandry. By the beginning of the present century, they were present in all phases of it, dominating the ranks of the sheepherders and nomadic outfits that moved about the public lands throughout the year. Some Basques also acquired their own ranch properties; others worked as camptenders and ranch foremen. Still others became involved as wool and lamb buyers and in livestock transportation.

In recent years, open range sheep husbandry in the United States has declined due to increased labor costs and herder shortages, the abolition of certain predator control measures, the success of environmentalists in limiting livestock numbers on the public lands, declining demand for wool versus synthetic fabrics, and foreign competition for meat products. Consequently, the Basque involvement in sheep husbandry is more historic than actual. Many former herders and owners returned to Europe; others have converted sheep ranches to cattle, while many have moved to nearby small towns where they engage in construction work or establish small businesses (bars, bakeries, motels, gasoline stations, etc.). In San Francisco, Basques work as gardeners, each specializing in caring for dozens of urban, postage-stamp sized yards. They wrested this occupational niche from Japanese-Americans when the latter were interned during World War II. In the Greater Los Angeles area, several Basques work as milkers in large commercial dairies. Wherever jai alai (words which mean "happy festival" in Basque) is legalized, Basque players are recruited from Europe. They tend to be true sojourners, playing part of the year in the Basque Country and the remainder in the United States. Basque Americans are assimilated into the wider culture and therefore display the full range of American occupations and professions. There are Basque attorneys, medical doctors, and university professors, as well as a few owners and chief executive officers of major businesses and financial institutions. It is also true, however, that Basque Americans have tended to cluster in small businesses, trades, and unskilled occupations. In part, this is a reflection of the Old World rural origins of their forebears and their own upbringing in rural and/or small-town America.

In the American West there is a Basque ethnic network which, if far from absolute, provides a certain Basque clientele to Basque-owned businesses and tradesmen. The Basque hotels are particularly patronized by Basque Americans, although all depend upon their wider American clientele as well. In this regard, they trade on the excellent reputation of Basque cuisine and their fame for providing a unique ethnic atmosphere.

In both Old World and Basque American society there is considerable egalitarianism between the sexes. Although domestic tasks remain largely the purview of women they are not regarded as demeaning for men. Conversely, whether running a ranching operation, a Basque hotel, or a town business, women work alongside their menfolk performing virtually any task.

In Old World Basque society, farm or business ownership is a point of personal pride and social prestige, an attitude discernible among Basque Americans. Practically none entered the United States with the intention of remaining salaried sheepherders. Rather, the occupation was seen as a stepping stone providing savings to either return to Europe and purchase land, or to acquire a ranch or town business in the United States. Those Basques who remain salaried employees manifest an extremely high level of home ownership.

The Basque American community is stitched together by extended consanguineal (reckoned bilaterally) and affinal ties. Recruitment of herders from Europe typically involved sending for or receiving a request from a brother or cousin willing to come to the United States. Therefore, each Basque American colony is more likely to be made up of family clusters rather than unrelated families and individuals. The degree of interrelatedness is enhanced by local endogamy involving an Old World-born ex-herder and a Basque American spouse or two first-generation Basque Americans. Extended Basque American families tend to maintain close ties, gathering for baptisms, graduations, weddings, and funerals, and is further integrated by godparental ties.

Basque kinship terms are of the Eskimo variety. Sibling terms differ according to whether the speaker is male or female. Basque kinship reckoning is quite consonant with that in the wider North American mainstream.

Few Basques entered the United States with the intention of staying. Also, the immigrants were mainly young males. The sheepherding occupation was inimical to family life and the only married herders were sojourners who had left their spouses and children in Europe. Gradually, some Basques became oriented to an American future and either sent back or went back to Europe for brides (few married non-Basques). Many of the brides were of the "mail order" variety, the sister or cousin of an acquaintance made in the United States. As Basque hotels proliferated they became a source of spouses. The hotel keepers sent back to Europe for women willing to come to America as domestics and few remained single for long. In this fashion, the basis of Basque American family life and community was established.

Most Basque American households are of the nuclear family variety and are largely indistinguishable from their American counterparts. For those Basques engaged in ranching, the notion of family, or at least of family privacy, is stretched to include ranch employees. The latter sleep in a bunkhouse, but they are likely to take their meals in the kitchen of the main house. If the outfit includes Old World-born herders with limited or no English skills, they are likely to be afforded special attention by the family. For families engaged in the hotel business, home is the entire establishment, which is truly a family enterprise. Special attention is likely to be accorded to the permanent boarders--retired herders with no interest in returning to Europe.

In Europe, farm property is transmitted to a single heir in each generation. This is less noticeable among Basque Americans. Few Basque American businesses or ranches remain in the same family for two or more generations.

Child rearing among Basque Americans is quite similar to that in mainstream American society. The exception is that first-generation American-born children are imbued with an urgency to excel in academics and athletics through the secondary school level. This has been interpreted as the need to prove oneself in American terms as a counter-measure to anti-immigrant and, at times, specifically anti-Basque prejudice.

After the family, the most important social institution is the hotel or boarding house. For the Old World-born herder it is a town address, a bank, an employment agency, an ethnic haven, a source of advice and translation assistance when dealing with the wider society, a place to leave one's city clothes while on the range and one's saddle, rifle, and bedroll when on a return visit to Europe, a possible source of a bride, and a potential retirement home. For the Basque American, it is a place to recharge one's ethnic batteries, practice one's rusty Basque, learn something about Old World Basque culture, dance to Basque music, eat Basque cuisine, hire help, possibly board one's children during the school year, and hold baptism and wedding receptions as well as wakes. Over the past 4 decades, Basque social clubs have emerged in many small towns and cities of the American West. There is now a Basque festival cycle in the region, lasting from late May through early September, with many of the social clubs sponsoring a local event. Several of the clubs have their own folk-dance group. In Bakersfield, Boise, and San Francisco, the Basque club has its own physical plant for meetings, dances, and banquets.

Basque Americans tend to reflect the conservative politics of rural western America, usually registering as Republicans. The most notable Basque politicians include Nevada's former Governor and U. S. Senator Paul Laxalt, and Idaho's Secretary of State Peter Cenarrusa. Basque Americans have minimal interest in and knowledge of political developments in the European Basque homeland. In the 1980s, representatives of the Government of Euskadi (EUSKO JAURLARITZA), including its president, several parliamentarians, and ministers have visited the Basque settlements of the United States. The Basque government has provided some financial aid to Basque American organizations and cultural endeavors and currently publishes an English-language newsletter regarding events in the Basque homeland. In 1974, the Basque clubs of the United States formed NABO, or North American Basque Organizations, Inc. Each of the nineteen member clubs elects a NABO delegate. The organization meets periodically to coordinate the Basque festival cycle and to promote special events. These include sponsorship of national handball and MUS (a Basque card game) championships, the U. S. tours of Old World Basque performing artists, and an annual summer music camp for Basque American children at which they learn Basque folk music and are instructed in the TXISTU (a flute-like instrument played simultaneously with the drum).

Peer pressure among Basque Americans is pronounced. Basques have a group reputation for honesty (one's word is deemed to be as good as a written contract) and hard work. Anyone jeopardizing this perception through scandalous or frivolous behavior is likely to be both criticized and ostracized.

Basques have experienced a degree of discrimination in the United States. They are sometimes perceived to be Latins or Hispanics by persons ignorant of the subtleties of southern European ethnic differentiation. The close identification of Basques with sheepherding, a denigrated occupation in the American West, and the activities of the nomadic ("tramp" to their detractors) sheep bands in competing with settled livestock interests for access to the range were additional sources of anti-Basque sentiment and even legislation. More recently, the sensationalized newspaper coverage of conflict in the Basque Country, and particularly the activities of the ETA organization, have made Basque Americans sensitive to the possible charge of being terrorist sympathizers.

Basques are Roman Catholics, with strong Jansenist overtones. On occasion, the Church has assigned a Basque chaplain to minister to the Basques of the American West. In Old World Basque society there was a belief in witchcraft and supernatural dwellers in mountain caverns and forest fastnesses. There is little carryover of this tradition to the Basque American context.

With exceptions, Basque Americans are not particularly devout. The isolation of sheep camp and ranch life precluded regular church attendance. Basque American demographics in which a small population is scattered over an enormous geographic expanse, militated against the development of a Basque ethnic church. Conversely, few Basques have converted to other religions and a number of Basque Americans attend parochial schools and Catholic universities.

There are several Basque folk-dance groups and TXISTU players in the American West. There are also a few BERTSOLARIAK, or versifiers, who spontaneously comment on any subject in sung verse. The literary spokesman of the Basque American experience is Robert P. Laxalt, whose book, Sweet Promised Land, described his father's life as a sheepman in the American West and his return visit to his natal village. The Basque festival incorporates several Old and New World features including a mass, folk dancing, social dancing, barbecue, athletic events (woodchopping, stone lifting, weight carrying, tugs-of-war) and possibly sheep hooking and sheepdog trials. In 1989, the National Monument to the Basque Sheepherder was dedicated in a public park in Reno Nevada. It contains a seven-meter high contemporary sculpture by the noted European Basque sculptor Nestor Bastarretxea.

There is nothing distinctively Basque about their New World medical beliefs or practices.

Standard Christian beliefs in heaven, purgatory, and hell obtain. Funerals are taken quite seriously, and mobilize the widest range of kinship and friendship ties. Basque Americans will travel hundreds of miles to attend the funeral of a family member, fellow villager, or former companion.

Documents referred to in this section are included in this eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The Basque Americans file consists of nine English language documents, covering a time span from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1990s. Of these, four have been written by William A. Douglass (1979, 1981, 1992, 1975, nos. 4-7) one of the foremost scholars on the Basques. His works provide an excellent background for a study of the Basques of North America, containing information on cultural history, general ethnography, immigration patterns, settlements, and the manner in which Basque ethnicity has been maintained. Nearly all documents in this file contain information on sheep herding, as well as on cultural assimilation, cultural associations, recreational activities, and other forms of economic pursuits (other than sheep herding). In addition to the above, Araujo (1974, no. 1) also provides some interesting data on the effects of hydatid disease (Echinococcosis species) on human and animal populations in California. The significance of the Basque hotel is frequently mentioned in many of the works in this file. A study of the hotel in all its manifestations, is specifically detailed in Echeverria (Echeverria 1988, no 9).

For more detailed information on any of the individual works in this file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

This culture summary is from the article, "Basques" by William A. Douglass in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol 1. 1991. Timothy O'Leary and David Levinson, eds. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall & Co. The synopsis and indexing notes were prepared by John Beierle, August 1996.

• ARDINAGUSIA -- the sheep owner -- category 233

• ARTZAINAK -- herdsmen -- categories 233, 464

• CONBENIO -- a sheep-raising contract -- categories 233, 675

• INDARRA -- force of strength -- depending on context, categories 761, 147, 827, 828

• KAMPERO -- camptender -- categories 233, 464

• OSTATUAK -- boarding house or hotel -- category 485, (sometimes with 362)

• SENDOTASUNA -- physical prowess and strength of character -- categories 147, 827, 828

• sheepmen's organizations -- categories 233, 575

Douglass, William A., and Jon Bilbao (1975). Amerikanuak: Basques in the New World. Reno: University of Nevada Press.

Douglass, William A., and Beltran Paris (1979). Beltran: Basque Sheepman of the American West. Reno: University of Nevada Press.

Laxalt, Robert P. (1986). Sweet Promised Land. Reno: University of Nevada Press.