euskalkultura.eus

More than one hundred people with varying degrees of relationship, all with the Arrazola last name, gathered at their 3^rd International Family Reunion carried out in Cartagena de Indias.  This gathering enjoyed the same success as prior reunions so organizers have already set a date for the fourth in 2020 in Belgium and 2022 in Mexico.

Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.  Arrazolas from the Basque Country, Spain, Costa Rica, Argentina, Switzerland, the US, Panama and Mexico attended the event May 18-20, 2018 in Colombia where the Arrazolas gathered for their family reunion.  During their stay, they carried out several cultural and recreational activities including visits and laying wreaths at monuments in memory of ancestors of the same last name, and those who occupied distinguished positions in their local societies.

Raul Arrazola, representative from Argentina at the event told EuskalKultura.com that a delegate from each country was welcomed to the Historic Archive in Cartagena where they met with the History Board.  They also organized talks on issues related to the family, and had mass as a way to conclude the event.

The first family reunion took place in 2014 in Spain, in Checa, Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha and the 2016 gathering took place in Oñati Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country. Raul Arrazola said that upcoming reunions will take place every two years and that in 2020 the event will be in Flanders, Belgium and in 2022 in Mexico City.  The selection of the two places, according to organizers, has to do with the presence of descendants of the Arrazola family in each. In Flanders, there are some 100 Arrazolas, descendants of Juan de Arrazola, “who through the ups and downs of life established there generating the saga of the “Arrazola from Oñati,” the organizer explained.  Mexico is the country with the most people with the Arrazola last name.  “There is an estimated 4,100 there,” they said.

Argentine Representation

Family reunion attendees from Argentina included Raul Oscar Arrazola, his wife Alicia Cortiña de Arrazola, and Maria Estela Arrazola, from Santa Fe. Raul is originally from Rio Cuarto, Cordoba, and is a founding member of the local Basque club, Gure Ametza.