euskalkultura.eus

Vitoria-Gasteiz/NYC.  What was already informally known in the US Basque community has now been made official by the Basque Government through a note stating that Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu will travel to the US this coming October, for among other things, to participate in the Centennial celebration of New York’s Eusko Etxea, the eldest in the US, as part of a charged agenda that includes politics, economics and culture.

The Lehendakari will visit New York, Washington DC and Milwaukee, Wisconsin on a journey that in addition to Marian Elorza, Secretary General of Foreign Affairs, will also include Arantza Tapia, Minister of Economic Development and Competiveness, leading a delegation in her area. 

Besides meeting representatives of the Federation of Basque clubs in the US (NABO) and the clubs in New York and Washington DC, the Lehendakari will hold a series of meetings with various political authorities, congressmen, senators, mayors and governors; with economic agents, representatives of Basque businesses established in the US; with international agents, members of the United Nations and with members of the University of Columbia according to the note made public by the Lehendakaritza.

In regards with his meetings with the Diaspora, Urkullu will take part in the events organized in Manhattan and Brooklyn as part of the Centennial of New York’s Eusko Etxea and will hold discussions with NABO there, as well as holding meetings with the local Basque community and that of Washington DC.

Founded on October 13, 1913, the entity officially registered as Eusko Etxea of New York is the eldest of the Basque clubs in the US – not in North America however, since Mexico’s Euskal Etxea was founded in 1907 – even if there are other Basque institutions that have been founded in the country by Basques since the mid-nineteenth century.