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BASQUE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT INTERVIEW TAPE INDEX
NAME:
Patxi Marcuerquiaga TAPE MINUTE SUMMARY OF CONTENTS Tape 1, side 10-2:30 Patxi was born in Ispaster in 1928. His baserri’s name was Kurtzia. His family grew corn, wheat, and hay, and raised milk cows. They also had chickens, pigs, rabbits, dogs, and cats. His family sold milk, eggs, and some produce in Lekeitio. The farm provided most of the food they needed to subsist. Patxi has three younger sisters: María Luisa, Josefa and Mari. Both of his parents worked full-time on the farm. 2:30-8:00 His school, Gardata, was between Lekeitio and Ispaster. Interestingly, Patxi’s father and some neighbors built the school to accommodate the children in the area. Their teacher was a Basque lady. As soon as the Spanish Civil War ensued, Basque was not allowed in or around the school, and the teacher would punish children caught speaking the language. He started going to school when he was 5 years old. Patxi remembers that if a student were caught speaking Basque, they would have to kneel against a wall, arms outstretched, and hold books for a few minutes. Students who misbehaved had to bring their own willow switches to school and were spanked with them. He finished school at 12, but missed a few years of school while the Civil War ran its course. Many families moved out of town, but Patxi’s family stayed. He vividly remembers the day, April 28, when Franco’s forces moving into town. He was six or eight years old. The troops did not arrest or imprison anyone, but Patxi remembers that neighbors with opposing political views would turn on each other. After Franco assumed power, he remembers hearing stories of neighbors reporting each other to the authorities. 8:00-12:00 At home, Patxi and his sisters did many chores on the farm. They cut hay, fed the animals, brought wood for the stove among other things. They did not have much time to play, and had to miss school frequently to help with farm work. Since Patxi was the oldest child, babysitting and other responsibilities often fell to him. He spoke Basque with his family and friends, but Spanish at school. He remembers playing handball at the frontón in town on Sundays after church. He and his friends went to school and worked at home during the week, but met on Sundays to play or walk around Lekeitio. Patxi remembers some of the festivals he would go to in Ispaster, Bedarona, Ea, Natxitua, Ereino, Mendexa, Amoroto, Gizaburuaga and other villages in the area. They walked or rode a bus to all the festivals. 12:00-15:30 School was important to his family, but farm obligations often took precedence over going to school. Students took a 3-month vacation in the summer. Patxi’s first job was at the sawmill in Lekeitio at the age of 16. Before that he worked at home and occasionally helped his father pull timber from the hills to the highways (using cows). His father gave him a little spending money for his help. There were three or four sawmills in Lekeitio who used the wood. Patxi ended up working for the Eiguren sawmill for several years. He explains that he served in the Spanish Army for a while and a construction company for a year before returning to work at the mill. Altogether, he says he worked at the sawmill for 10 years. The last stint was from 1951 to 1957. 15:30-19:00 He was at the mill for four years before serving in the Army for 23 months and 10 days. Patxi counted the days. He was stationed at San Fernando, Cadiz, and served as a guard. After his discharge, he returned home. He helped his father build a house in Lekeitio for almost a year before going back to the Eiguren sawmill. 19:00-23:00 Patxi had 6 or 7 uncles in the United States. Five were in Winnemucca, one was in Enterprise, Oregon, and one was in Nampa, Idaho. He met 27 cousins in Winnemucca. The uncles in Winnemucca were on his father’s side and the other two were on his mother’s. His father’s brothers wrote to his father and told him what life in the US was like. His father had been in Winnemucca as a cowboy from 1908 to 1924. He returned to Ispaster, married, and raised a family. In 1956 he returned to Winnemucca to visit his brothers, nieces, and nephews. He came with the intention of staying for 6 months, but ended up staying for 6 years and 9 months. He was in the US when Patxi immigrated. 23:00-28:00 One of his father’s uncles had written to Patxi, asking him to come work in the US. Another uncle, the one in Oregon, owned sheep, so Patxi arranged to work for him. Patxi was one of the last Basques to enter the United States under a sheep herding contract. He explains the process of sponsorship and how he obtained the documents he needed to go to the US. It took three or four years for Patxi to get all the documents. In the meantime, he married. His first daughter was born before he left for America. He explains how he met his wife [Cirila Armaolea] at a festival in Lekeitio in 1951. Coincidentally, it was his 23rd birthday. They married in Ispaster. 28:00-30:00 After they married, the couple moved into his family’s house. Their first daughter, Amaia, was born in that house. In March of 1957, six months after his daughter was born, he left for America. He did not feel good about it, but they had already made the decision for him to go. Tape 1, side 20-4:00 Patxi describes the route he took to get to Oregon. He took the train from Bilbao to Madrid, flew from Madrid to New York, flew from New York to Portland, flew to Pendleton, and took a bus to Enterprise, Oregon. He made the trip with four other Basques from Bermeo. Patxi’s uncle’s lawyer picked him up from the bus station, took him to a restaurant to eat, and set him up in a motel. Patxi did not speak any English when he arrived. His father had told him about the US, but did not sugarcoat his stories. He told Patxi that the “dogs don’t wear any shoes there” either. Patxi thought he would work temporarily in the US, make some money, and return to Ispaster, but he eventually decided to stay. He describes the climate in Enterprise. His first thought upon stepping off the bus was that he really did not know anybody. 4:00-10:00 His uncle’s sheep ranch was called Cherry Creek Sheep Company. He spent about five days in the motel, and called an uncle in Winnemucca. The next day, his uncle, father, cousin and her husband drove to Enterprise to meet him. They spent two days with him and went back to Winnemucca. The next day, his uncle and his partner’s wife drove to Enterprise, picked Patxi up, helped him buy the clothes he would need, and took him to the sheep ranch a couple of days later. He was happy to be able to speak Basque again. 10:00-14:15 At the ranch, Patxi was put to work helping other sheep herders. He remembers how they received supplies at a certain point along the Snake River. Once a week, a boat would travel from Lewiston, Idaho to deliver supplies. For the first two years, Patxi stayed on the ranch. After two years he became a camptender. After 6 years and 3 months he returned to Ispaster for 9 months. He wanted to bring his family to America. He was not a citizen yet, so he had to return to Cherry Creek for three months to get his citizenship. He moved to Nevada and got his citizenship papers in 1964. While he was away from his wife and daughter, they wrote a letter to each other once a week without fail. There were three or four Basques on the small sheep ranch in Oregon. 14:15-20:15 Since he did not spend much time in town with non-Basques, he learned English slowly. There were no Basque clubs or organizations in the area. When he took his first trip back to the Basque country after the first six years, he took a ship with his father. He enjoyed the trip more than the one by plane. It felt like a vacation! He had spent about three weeks each year (Christmas) with his uncles and their families in Winnemucca, and he describes what they did together. They used to go to New Year’s Eve dinner at one of his uncles’ houses. After dinner they would go to town to celebrate the New Year. 20:15-24:00 Back to his trip, Patxi arrived in L’Havre, France, spent the night in Paris, and took a train down to San Sebastian. He was happy to see his wife and daughter, who was almost seven years old at the time. His wife had been sending photographs of their daughter to him, but he was still surprised to see her. They went down to Lekeitio the next day. Patxi wanted to bring his family to the United States but he did not have his citizenship papers yet. He spent 9 months with his wife and daughter, but had to go back to American for another year to become a citizen before he could send for them. His wife and daughter finally arrived in the US on Christmas Eve 1965. He says it was the best present he could imagine. 24:00-28:45 Before the rest of his family immigrated, Patxi worked at the Cherry Creek lambing sheds for three months. He moved to Nevada after the lambing period. He had been thinking of moving to Lovelock, Nevada for some time because he wanted to his job to be close to where he would eventually settle with his family. He did not want his wife and children to live in town while he spent months away with the sheep. In Lovelock, he found work at a ranch (Nevada Nile Ranch – see minute 29) and immediately started building a new feed lot for cattle. A friend in Winnemucca had given him a book to study for the citizenship exam. The exam itself was quite easy. The book was written in English, which Patxi could read fairly well by that time with help from friends. He was granted citizenship in September of 1964, but did not receive the actual documents until February of 1965. He filled out two applications and submitted some financial information (annual income, etc.) to bring his family to Nevada. 28:45-30:00 Patxi describes his job at Nevada Nile Ranch. After they built the feed lot, he spent a couple of years in the hay farm, then fed the cows in the feed lot for two or three years, then worked on the ranch until 1986. That year he moved to Nevada Supplement, which was a division of the same ranch. The Supplement shut down in 1993, so Patxi found a job at the Rochester mine in Lovelock. Tape 2, side 10-9:00 Patxi worked at the machine shop at the Rochester mine. He was part of a maintenance crew for the mine until his retirement in 2000. He has friends who still work at the Nevada Nile ranch. The workers at the ranch were mostly Mexicans. Patxi was the only Basque. At Nevada Nile he helped cut hay, bail it, drive the retriever, and worked with the irrigation system. After a while he became one of the foremen. He supervised the haying and irrigation operations, and Patxi usually worked about 13 hours a day (or more). As a foreman he was paid by salary, not by the hour, so he was always on call if a problem arose. At one time the ranch covered about 9,000 acres and took care of around 25,000 head of cattle in the feed lot. At Nevada Supplement, he worked in the mill where they made wooden pallets to use in feeding the cattle. Shortly after the Supplement shut down, they offered him a job at the Nile ranch, but he wanted to try working at the mines. 9:00-10:00 He describes his work schedule at the mine. 10:00-14:15 Patxi’s second daughter, Elena, was born in Loveland in 1966, ten years after his first daughter, Amaia. Frankie and Ana were born in 1968 and 1973, respectively. They spoke Basque at home and continue to do so today. His daughters learned English in school. The transition to life in America was very difficult for Amaia. She did not want to move to America initially. She was ten years old when she started school in Loveland, and it took her a little while to adjust. She was the only Basque immigrant her age in Loveland. Amaia was able to speak Spanish with Mexican friends, but most of her friends spoke only English. Two of her friends, Renee Gandiaga and Danny Landa, were Basque but spoke neither Basque nor Spanish. 14:15-20:45 Patxi and Cirila made it a point to speak Basque to their children. When they made their first trip to the Basque country in 1974, everyone was surprised to learn that the children spoke Basque. Patxi’s family was very pleased to see that he and Cirila had maintained the language in America. They took their children to Basque social events in Elko, Reno, Boise and other towns to expose them to Basque culture. There is no Basque organization in Lovelock. The closest is in Winnemucca, which is 72 miles away. Their daughters enjoyed going to the festivals. Patxi had to take time off from work to go to Basque social events and take trips to the Basque country. His bosses, one of whom was Dick MacDougal [at Nevada Nile], were understanding and allowed him to take the time he needed. 20:45-26:45 On their first trip back to the Basque country, they noticed that there were many new houses in Lekeitio and lots of automobiles on the roads. They noticed that the younger generation was more outgoing and liberal. It was more acceptable for young women, including wives, to leave their children with family and go to bars. Cirila says that the younger generation appeared to be closer together. They understood each other better than her generation did. Patxi noticed the same thing, and attributes it to the fact that cars make it easier to travel and see friends. Subsequent visits: 1983, 1992, and 1998. In 1992 and 1998, Cirila and Patxi went by themselves. Even with the changes in the Basque country, they feel very comfortable when they go to visit. They give examples of how much of the change has been for the better. Patxi has difficulty following the politics in the Basque country. He and Cirila prefer to stay out of politics. 26:45-28:30 They keep in touch with family and friends in the Basque country by telephone or email. Their children print out emails from younger relatives for them to read. 28:30-30:00 Both Patxi and Cirila are members of the Winnemucca Basque Club. They talk about the extent of their involvement. It is difficult to attend every meeting, but they like to join club members on charter buses to Basque festivals in other towns. Tape 2, side 2 0-7:00 Patxi visits friends in Boise occasionally. They often meet to play cards at the Basque Center. He and Cirila are active in the Winnemucca Basque community and those in other cities. They talk about where their children live and how they are involved, to varying degrees, with other Basques in their communities. Patxi and Cirila reemphasize how comfortable they are when they visit the Basque country. When asked how he would identify himself culturally, Patxi answers that although he feels strongly Basque he is happy with his US citizenship and his life in America. He enjoys visiting, but would not move back to Ispaster permanently. He is happy to go there, but is also happy to come back to Loveland. His heart is in both places, but feels most at home in Loveland with his family. The Basque country does not pull him as strongly as it did before. When his parents died, his desire to go back home eased a little. He feels different when he sees his parents’ house because they are no longer there, even though his youngest sister still lives in the house.
NAMES AND PLACES
Armaolea,
Cirila – Patxi’s wife. Amoroto –
Patxi mentions festivals here. Basque
clubs and organizations |
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