Book About Idaho Basques

This note pertaining the Basque community in the USA was published today at EITb:

Basque Diaspora

New book will gather biography of almost 10,000 Basque Americans

10/24/2007

The book Biographical Dictionary of Idaho Basques will gather data about almost 10,000 Basque Americans in the state of Idaho.

Basque writer Koldo San Sebastian will present by year's end a biographical dictionary gathering data on almost 10,000 Basque Americans from the state of Idaho.

San Sebastian will count on the help of a group of collaborators from the United States that includes Argitxu Camus from Reno University; Patty Miller, director of the Basque museum in Boise and John Bieter, historian and professor at the Boise State University, EuskalKultura.com reports on its web site.

Almost 10,000 Basques arrived in the U.S. state of Idaho between 1890 and 1930. Most of them worked as shepherds. Although a great amount of them came back to the Basque Country some years before, others settled down and created one of the biggest Basque communities outside the Basque Country.

Their Basque-American descendants will now be able to discover their relatives lives in this new book. For example, the writer will find inside the book the story of his grandmother, Flora Bengoetxea, who claims to be 'the first Basque born in Idaho'.

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