![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://aboutbasquecountry.eus/en/2019/07/31/return-to-the-basque-heart-of-australia/&media=https://aboutbasquecountry.eus/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/basque-club-of-north-queensland.jpg&description=A group of 50 Basques visits the "Basque heart of Australia", which is the perfect "excuse" for ABC to write an article about the history of the Basques Down Under){kind=link}
This article was translated by John R. Bopp
We are thrilled. Why? Because, again, journalist Tom Mayor has published an article about the Basques for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the public media broadcaster Down Under since 1932.
We don’t get many articles about this rather unknown part of our diaspora, despite the fact that a good part of it comes from the emigrations of the 20th century. Well, we have to admit that “we don’t have many articles” might be a bit of a stretch. Really, all we have is two, and half of them were written by Tom Mayor for the ABC website.
This article, our third (!), talks about the visit of some 50 Basques who traveled from the Basque Country to Australia in order to trace their family history, or to go back to the land where they lived several years of their lives.
But this report offers us so much more. It gives us a general overview of the history of the Basques in the Antipodes. It tells us their stories, of their arrivals, of their departures, and of how those who are still there, many of them third-generation Basque descendants, still maintain the roots that tie them to the land of their forebears.
It’s a beautiful story that we’re sure is going to enchant our blog readers from that part of the world.
For those who’d like to know more about the history, and stories, of the Basques in Australia, we recommend the book Australia, Vasconia, and the Lucky Country by Gloria Totoricagüena Egurrola. It can be found, for free, in .pdf at the Urazandi Colection.
ABC – 31/7/2019 – Australia
Pioneering migrants visit Australia’s Basque heartland to trace family history
They travelled across the world in the 1950s and ’60s to build a new life cutting sugarcane in the steamy paddocks of north Queensland. Now they are returning to learn the story of their ancestors. A group of 50 visitors from Spain’s Basque Country have visited north Queensland during the past week, some returning to a land they left as children when their parents returned home.
(Follow) (Automatic Translation)
Last Updated on Dec 20, 2020 by About Basque Country