Rosario, Argentina / Abadiño, Bizkaia. Ignacio Unzueta Ortuzar left the Basque Country when he was 16 and arrived in Rosario, Argentina seeking new and better opportunities. He found them with a lot of work and effort that is so characteristic of the Basques.
As he tells in an interview with Luis Maria Barrandeguy for the local Rosario radio program “Palabra de Vasco,” he was born "on June 16, 1936 in Mendiola, Abadiño, Bizkaia,” in the Ibargoiti farmhouse. His parents were Leon Unzueta and Donata Ortuzar. He always thought about leaving “for some other place, Argentina, US or Venezuela….Being 15 I was working in Durango in a large enterprise, and my older brother was called to do his military service. That is when my mother decided to emigrate. We had an aunt and two uncles, on my mother’s side, in Rosario and in General Baigorria. When we arrived, my brother went to work at an inn in the field, and I stayed in Rosario, working on a dairy. I worked for six months and another Basque, Patxi Arrieta, told me that he would sell me his shares in the milk. I didn’t have enough money, but he gave me three years to pay it off. I would get up at 4am, and go get milk that came from Roldan and started delivering it…after six months my debt was paid.”
“How did you do it? Arrieta asked me. By working, I told him.”
The life of Ignacio Unzueta is full of anecdotes like this one. When he reached 20, after having bought and sold various shares, Unzueta decided to change and try his luck in the field of hospitality.
“After 20 years I bought a bar that was on Buenos Aires Street and July 9, and next door there were rooms so I crated a bar and boardinghouse. Later I sold it and I rented a house on Catamarca 1837 and there I ran a boardinghouse for 55 people. That is how I started. I would buy and sell various boarding houses but I was 25 when I bought the place where I am now. I worked hard, I had 104 beds with full board. Rosario was at the peak of construction, and so many people came from elsewhere and there was a lot of work. As time went by, we decided to demolish the boardinghouse to build a hotel, Hotel Euskadi, that at first was going to be smaller, but then I got enthused….,” he proudly states.
In the meantime, Ignacio married Elba Rosa Osa Aldekoa, who at the time was a Basque dance teacher at the Zazpirak Bat Basque club in Rosario. The couple had three children, Maite, Begoña and Jose Ignacio. “I am very grateful to Argentine,” he says. “I live the way I wanted and did what I liked, I traveled a lot….what else could I ask for….I always moved forward. Now the new generations have to follow,” he concluded. (To hear the complete interview click here).
Birthday number 80
Having lived almost his entire life in Rosario, Ignacio Unzueta wanted to celebrate his 80th birthday in the town where he was born, and so next Sunday, June 19, there will be a meal in Abadiño for family members and friends. When his friends in Rosario he gets together with every Wednesday (the "Miercolinos” group) at Zazpirak Bat knew about his plans, they decided to travel to the Basque Country with him to join in the festivities.
In the words of Luis Maria Barrandeguy, “Unzueta is one of the main members of our Gastronomic Society “los Miercolinos” and right away everyone was enthused with the idea of accompanying him for the celebration. We will be a small group with Claudio Esnal, Juan Carlos Lasalle, Jorge Loinaz, Julen Otamendi, Enrique Otaño, Luis Otaño, Julio Zubillaga and myself. We will leave on Thursday the 16 and after the birthday party, we will visit other places in the Basque Country like Zarautz, Algorta and Donostia. We are really excited by the idea.”
Unzueta is getting everything ready in Abadiño to welcome his friends. The presence of his friends from Rosario will be without a doubt, very important to him, as he recognizes the Zazpirak Bat in Rosario holds a very special place in his life: “When I was 17 went to the Basque club for the first time. I would go two or three times a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sundays, to eat. I spent many years there and I have met a lot of people. I love how things are going at the Zazpi. There are people who want to work hard; there always were, with different ideas…sometimes it was a kind of closed place, but now it is open and this is good. My message for the club’s youth is that they keep it going since this is their time,” Unzueta concludes.
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