Boise in The New York Times, when speaking about a part of the US means speaking about Basques

This article was translated by John R. Bopp

The New York Times has just published another edition of its series “36 Hours in…”.  We’ve already blogged about this three times, when they reported on three Basque coastal cities, Biarritz, San Sebastián, and Bilbao (actually, we blogged about San Sebastián twice).  We’ve always defended that this newspaper should get an award as a “Friend of the Basques” for its professional and independent editorial line when discussing our country.

On August 9, this paper published another entry in this series, this time about a US city, Boise.  So why are we bringing it up here? Because the word “Basque” appears no fewer than 15 times, including the time it appears in the headline.

We’ve spoken a lot about the Basque presence in the US, which is concentrated especially in the western half of the continental. US.  It’s a significant presence which has had, and still has, a small but active, respected, and influential community. As we’ve blogged about before, Boise has one of the highest concentrations of Basques in that part of the world, so it’s logical that the New York daily would cover it.  It’s no coincidence that the city’s mayor, David Bieter, is a self-declared Basque, who even got the chance to explain who and what this people is to President Obama while they traveled together on Air Force One.

The author, Kenneth R. Rosen, is a young but respected journalist in the US, and has captured all the Basque influence on daily life in the capital of Idaho.  The only mistake we found was that he called “pintxos” “tapas”. As we always say, they’re different things.

Nevertheless, it was great to read a fantastic article about this part of the Land of the Basques, because, as our regular readers well know, we have always believed that the Land of the Basques is wherever Basques are.

The New York Times – 9/8/2018 – USA

36 Hours in Boise (and Beyond)

Once a hardscrabble stop on the Oregon Trail, Idaho’s capital combines remnants of frontier charm with an appreciation of fine food, local history and Basque culture. And beyond its urban borders, nature beckons.

(Sigue)

Google Translator. The New York Times does not permit Google’s automatic translation service.  It is necessary to cut and past the article’s text into the translator

Last Updated on Dec 20, 2020 by About Basque Country