euskalkultura.eus

There was important news in the last bulletin from the New England Basque Club: Sergio Sotelo will be the new president, after Roberto Guerenabarrenarena decided to step down as the head of the organization. The retired pilotari has been the president since the creation of the club in 2004, and as he told Euskalkultura.com, “now it’s time for new people to get in.”

Ander Egiluz Beramendi/USA. He became a professional zesta-punta player when he turned eighteen, in 1984, and after 15 years in the frontons, he decided to retire in 1999. Ever since, he’s been teaching Spanish and Literature at the Portsmouth Abbey School, in Portsmouth (New England).

-New times for the New England Basque Club, you’re going to pass the baton to the next generation.
-I’m happy that Sergio (Sotelo) and Naiara Azpiri are going to be the president and the vice-president of the club. The club needed a new push. We’ve, a small group of people, have been on the board of directors since the very beginning, and we have learnt how to do things, what to do, and what not to do. But now it’s time for new people to get in.

-So now you’re going to enjoy the club’s activities as a regular member?

-Yes and now, because I will be a member of the board, I will be doing other things.

-The most significant change you’ve gone through since the creation of the club has probably been the shift from being the Rhode Island Club to the New England Club. But is there any other event you would like to highlight?

-Yes, the moment we decided to become an official Club and not just a group of friends. There are a lot of Portuguese people here and Scots also, and people from all over the world and we thought that we had to preserve our history, the thirty years we’ve been here. We didn’t just want to celebrate because that doesn’t last forever; we wanted to preserve and to share. That was our goal at the time of creating the Club and that definitely was an important step.

-Each Basque Club has its own personality, what do Basques from New England enjoy doing?

-Most of us came from rural areas, not from big cities, so we enjoy watching and participating in rural sports. Until now we have also been very involved with pilota but that’s not possible anymore…

-"Zesta-punta" has been a very important sport in that part of the country. We might look at it as an old story but, do youngsters show interest in fronton sports nowadays?

-Not nowadays. Before there were four frontons in New England but currently we have none.

-Have you ever discussed the possibility of building one yourselves?

-That’s impossible, it’d be very expensive. Zesta-punta frontons are very long.

-Gorka Ochoa has started teaching Basque in Boston. It looks like you’re going to have an ongoing Euskara program. What’s the situation of the language in New England?

-Euskara classes are one of the things I’m very happy about and I’m very excited about Gorka teaching it in Boston. We do speak Basque, but we use it at home and we use Basque from home. As we say here, it’s like preaching to the choir, you know? But that’s not what we have to do, what we have to do is to show it to non-Basque people. And here we have an academic environment with many people learning Chinese or reading about it, but Euskara is here too. We’ve had Euskara classes in Portsmouth before but in Boston it’s going to be better. Now the challenge is to attract young people.

-Well, the first step towards the next generation is to pass the baton, and you already did that. Is there any advice you would like to give to Sergio and Naiara?

-I have no advice for them. I’m very happy that they’re going to be the presidents of the club. Both of them are very energetic people and Sergio has been working with me over the last year, to see how things have been done in the past. And on top of that, he already has experience on the board of directors, because he’s been a member for three years now. He is the kind of person that does what he says, and that’s very important, and he also has a lot of ideas. I'm glad Sergio is the new president.