An investigation into the specifics of Basque migrations, cultural representations, diasporic politics, and ethnonationalism, using theories from sociology, political science, history, and anthropology. Distributed for the Center for Basque Studies.

The Basques played a remarkably influential role in the creation and maintenance of Spain’s colonial establishment in the Philippines. Their skills as shipbuilders and businessmen, their evangelical zeal, and their ethnic cohesion and work-oriented culture made them successful as explorers, colonial administrators, missionaries, merchants, and settlers. They continued to play prominent roles in the governance and economy of the archipelago until the end of Spanish sovereignty, and their descendants still contribute in significant ways to the culture and economy of the contemporary Philippines. This book offers important new information about a little-known aspect of Philippine history and the influence of Basque immigration in the Spanish Empire, and it fills an important void in the literature of the Basque diaspora.

This work, by William Douglass (who helped initiate the Basque Studies Program at the University of Nevada, Reno) and Jon Bilbao (author of several Basque reference works), is the most accessible overview of the Basque diaspora in the Western Hemisphere. Amerikanuak is a pioneering study of one of the American West’s most important ethnic minorities, an engaging, comprehensive survey of Basque migration and settlement in the Americas, and an essential introduction to the history of the Basque people and their five centuries of involvement in the New World. Research for the book took the authors through ten states of the American West, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela as they traced the exploits of Basque whalers in the medieval Atlantic, the Basque conquistadors, missionaries, colonists, and sheepherders who formed a dramatic part of the history of Spanish America. They also follow the story of the Basques back to their mysterious origins in prehistory to provide background for understanding the Basques’ character and their homeland in the Pyrenean mountains and seacoasts between France and Spain. This is a revised and updated edition of the original 1975 publication. New preface by William A. Douglass.

The explosion of digital information and communication technologies has influenced almost every aspect of contemporary life. Diasporas in the New Media Age is the first book-length examination of the social use of these technologies by emigrants and diasporas around the world. The eighteen original essays in the book explore the personal, familial, and social impact of modern communication technology on populations of European, Asian, African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Latin American emigrants. It also looks at the role and transformation of such concepts as identity, nation, culture, and community in the era of information technology and economic globalization. The contributors, who represent a number of disciplines and national origins, also take a range of approaches—empirical, theoretical, and rhetorical—and combine case studies with thoughtful analysis. Diasporas in the New Media Age is both a discussion of the use of communication technologies by various emigrant groups and an engaging account of the immigrant experience in the contemporary world. It offers important insights into the ways that dispersed populations are using digital media to maintain ties with their families and homeland, and to create new communities that preserve their culture and reinforce their sense of identity. In addition, the book is a significant contribution to our understanding of the impact of technology on society in general.

Recent studies on migration have been given a new focus and theoretical framework. The so-called “political dimension” of Diasporas, and their action at the international level as agents of para-diplomacy, as well as the introduction of analysis of the trans-national character of the migratory phenomenon, allow us to dig deeply into the field of our investigations, taking us out of the narrow frame of the Nation State.

From critically acclaimed author Frank Bergon comes a new personal narrative about the San Joaquin Valley in California. This intimate companion to Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man brings us back to an Old West at odds with New West realities where rapid change is a common trait and memories are of rural beauty. Despite the physical transformations wrought by technology and modernity in the twenty-first century, elements of an older way of thinking still remain, and Bergon traces its presence using experiences from his own family and friends. Communal camaraderie, love of the land and its food, and joy in hard work done well describe Western lives ignored or misrepresented in most histories of California and the West. Yet nostalgia does not drive Frank Bergon’s intellectual return to that world. Also prevalent was a culture of fighting, ignorance about alcoholic addiction, brutalizing labor, and a feudal mentality that created a pain better lost and bid good riddance. Through it all, what emerges from his portraits and essays is a revelation of small-town and ranch life in the rural West. A place where the American way of extirpating the past and violently altering the land is accelerated. What Bergon has written is a portrayal of a past and people shaping the country he called home.

Taking as their inspiration and cue Jon Bilbao's book Vascos en Cuba, 1492-1511, the authors of this book, a collection of international academics, take up the subject of the involvement of the Basque people in Cuba from a variety of viewpoints and analytical and theoretical perspectives. The Basque Country has had a long and varied relationship with Cuba, its people, and its history. The chapters in this volume trace that connection based on diverse topics and viewpoints: the representations of Basques in classic Cuban poetry and Cuba as a topic in the nineteenth-century Basque novel; the involvement of Basques in the African slave trade, the role of the Tree in Gernika in Cuba's Templete monument, the service of Basque parliamentarians and soldiers in Spain's former colony, and the politics of Basque priests on the island are all treated, as well as much more. There are also chapters that consider the involvement of Basques regionally, in places such as Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba, Vueltabajo, and Havana. Edited by renowned Basque scholar William A. Douglass, this volume provides an important contribution in reclaiming a mostly neglected history.