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New York, NY.  Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu began a trip yesterday to Washington as part of his first official visit to the US.  The trip includes meetings with Basque companies established in the city as well as a visit to the Capitol.  While there he will meet with Idaho Senator James Risch and Congressman John Garamendi, Basque-American from California whose parents were from Lekeitio, who previously served as the states Vice-Governor.

The goal of these meetings, according to the Basque Government, is to create a network of collaboration between US political representatives and the Basque administration in order to develop topics of common interest.  In both meetings, the Lehendakari has delivered, first hand, the reality of Euskadi, in this new time of peace and economic recovery as principal goals of the Basque administration.

After other activities, the Lehendakari met with representatives of the Washington DC Basque club.  Today Urkullu will be in Milwaukee where he will visit the Ingeteam factory in this Wisconsin city.

[Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu with congressman John Garamendi and his wife Patty during their meeting in Washington (photo Irekia)]

Atxaga Chair is well-received

In New York, other Basque activities began on Monday with the 2013 sessions of the Atxga Chair at the City University of New York (CUNY), supported by the Etxepare Basque Institute.  During its first few days there were several open session held, on Monday in Manhattans as well as on Tuesday at an event at the Eusko Etxea on Eckford Street.  On Monday the panel Basque Language and Basque Society Today” was presented by Jasone Cenoz (UPV>EHU) along with Jacqueline Urla (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and Itziar Idiazabal (UPV/EHU-UNESCO Chair on World Language Heritage) as well as Jose del Valle (CUNY) in order to consider the current situation of the Basque language and society.

Afterwards, in a panel “Linguistic Policy, Policy of Coexistence: the Case of Catalan, Gallego and Basque” which included the participation of:  Patxi Baztarrika (Vice-Counsel of Linguistic Policy in the Basque Government), Eva J. Daussa (State University of New York at Buffalo) and Jose del Valle (CUNY, Graduate Center).

On Tuesday, Unai Lauxirika, Basque language lecturer for the Etxepare Institute at the University of Leipzig (Germany) gave a talk at the Euzko Etxea as part of the club’s Centennial festivities.  Finally, the second event, open to the public, took place yesterday at the Atxaga Chair with American journalist Mark Kurlansky who gave a talk about his vision of the Basques and Basque culture, followed by a piano concert by Iñaki Salvador in honor of Basque singer Mikel Laboa.  Both events took place at the Black Box Theater at CUNY in Manhattan.

[Journalist Mark Kurlansky, author of the book "A Basque history of the World", on the stage at the CUNY John Jay Black Box Theater yesterday (photo EuskalKultura.com)]

But this was not the end of Basque activities in the city of skyscrapers, just the opposite, they will continue today with the conference on the Basque Diaspora Euskal Herria Mugaz Gaindi (EHMG), whose Thursday sessions will take place at Columbia University with Friday’s sessions taking place at the Eusko Etxea.  The final events will take place on the weekend with the celebration and Gala among other commemorative events marking Euzko Etxea of New York’s Centennial.