Last year I was lucky enough to visit Bakersfield in the sister Republic of California during the NABO (North American Basque Organizations) convention.
It was a great time, the Kern County Basque Club facilities were the perfect set up for an event that attracted thousands of people, both Basques and non-Basques.
Just yesterday The Fresno Bee published an article by Diana Marcum with quite a long title:
There's only one old Basco shepherd staying in the boarding rooms upstairs, and only for a few days on his way to Bakersfield.
He's retired, among the last of the last, and will soon be gone.
But the long boarders' table at the red-brick Basque Hotel in downtown Fresno lives on. The table that once fed Basque shepherds who lived upstairs is now a decades-long gathering place for farmers from the west side.
Built in 1924, the hotel is a sturdy landmark — and tradition — on the edge of Chinatown, a neglected part of Fresno that the city and developers are targeting for a make-over.
By 11:30 a.m. every weekday but Monday, the dirt parking lot across the street fills with white pickup trucks — the farmer and retired farmer vehicle of choice. The bar, dusky with swiveling stools, is two-deep with men drinking picon punch (three-deep if it's raining or spareribs are being served). Don't let the innocuous term "punch" fool you, it's a heady-at-first-whiff brandy mixture in those bar glasses Fermin Urroz keeps refilling.....The Basque Hotel wasn't a Basque hotel for about eight years in the 1970s. A farm contractor housed workers upstairs and ran a bar and Mexican restaurant downstairs. The red brick was painted over with murals. The bar got a reputation as a rough place and drew a lot of attention from law enforcement. It closed, the workers left, and the building sat vacant.
Fermin Urroz wanted the place because "it was a Basque hotel. It should be a Basque place."
Thousands of men from the Basque region of France and Spain migrated to the United States during the Gold Rush and headed to the open range. Boarding houses with restaurants sprang up to serve the Basque workers, becoming a distinctive part of Western culture.
Another wave of Basque immigration began in the 1950s, when there was a shortage of labor in the sheep industry and Congress increased quotas for Spanish immigrants. But by the late '60s, the European economy improved and Basque immigration dwindled. Today, many of the Basque hotels have shuttered or become touristy spots owned by non-Basque.
Fermin Urroz came from Spain in the early '60s and spent 5 1/2 years as a shepherd. He sometimes lived at the Santa Fe, another old Basque hotel in Fresno.
Well, this comes handy now that I announce reciprocal linkage with a blog called "Who Are You to Accuse Me?", published by Philippe Duhart, a fellow Basque from Bakersfield.
As it happen, both his family and mine came from Iparralde, the Northern Basque Country.
I hope I can go back to Bakersfield soon, eating a couple of meals at Benji's and Wool Growers were highlights of that trip, although the rack of lamb we ate that Sunday was to die for.
Nik (Heart) Bakersfield.
*You can also read the entire article at Artxiboak.
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