Wikipedia source excerpts
Basque Americans (Basque: Euskal estatubatuarrak, Spanish: Vascos estadounidenses) are Americans of Basque descent.
Basque immigration peaked after the Spanish Carlist Wars in the 1830s—Ebro customs relocated to the Pyrenees—and in the 1860s following the discovery of gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. The current day descendants of Basque immigrants remain most notably in this area and across the Sierras into the neighboring area of northern Nevada, then northward, into Idaho. When the present-day states of California, Arizona and New Mexico were annexed by the United States after the Mexican–American War (1848), there were reportedly thousands of Basques of Spanish or mixed Mexican origin living in the Pacific Northwest.
By the 1850s, there were some Basque shepherds working in Cahuenga Valley (today Los Angeles, California). In the 1870s, the Los Angeles and Inland Empire land rush reportedly attracted thousands of Basques from Spain, Mexico and Latin America, but such reports do not bear out in a current census of Basque persons in the Southern United States, where Basque persons are exceptionally rare in U.S. census reporting. By the 1880s, Basque immigration had spread up into Oregon, Utah, Montana and Wyoming, with significantly lesser numbers reaching the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in the southernmost region. By 1895, there were reportedly about ten thousand self-reporting Basque-Americans in the United States.
Basques who migrated to the United States versus South America faced a language barrier that took years and in some cases generations to overcome, which disadvantaged them, while Basques migrating to South America ended up having better outcomes more immediately.
The current census figures demonstrated in the U.S. map on this page are remarkably low in comparison to these reports and the overall increase in the U.S. population since the 19th century. There has been a radical decrease in Basque immigration since that era, which has resulted in a significant decline in persons of Basque national or Spanish origin throughout the United States. Most of the self-reporting Basque persons remaining in the U.S. today are descendants of the original peak of Basque immigrants, who arrived between 200 and 100 years ago, typically reporting as multi-generational or great-great-grandchildren (1860 immigrants) as opposed to native-born persons of Basque ethnic identification and their subsequent immediate family, children, or grandchildren.
The degree to which one self-reports being "Basque" is a personal choice, often tied to an interest in one's heritage, whether one is the grandchild of a native-born Basque or of significantly mixed Native American (Mexican, South American, etc.), white European, or other racial admixture. There are significant numbers of Mexicans with Basque names, as many as one million self-reporting Mexicans of Basque racial or surname heritage today.
Thousands of Basques were recruited from Spain due to severe labor shortages during World War II. They came under contract with the Western Range Association between the 1940s until around 1970.
Basque clubs
There are nearly fifty such clubs in the United States,
the oldest of which is the Central Vascoamericano (founded 1913), today New York's Euzko Etxea situated in Brooklyn. In the West, efforts were made in 1907 to set up a club in Stockton, California. In 1914, the Basque Club of Utah was founded in Ogden, while the first Zazpiak Bat Club was started in San Francisco in 1960. In 1938, the Basques in the Bakersfield area founded the Kern County Basque Club. Even though, according to the most recent census, there are Basques in each of the fifty states, Basque clubs are only found in New York, Florida, California, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, Connecticut, The District of Columbia and Wyoming. However, there is a significant Basque population in Arizona, Georgia, Montana, New Jersey, and Texas. Basque-American clubs have connections with other Basques around the world (across Europe, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Puerto Rico, Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and the Philippines) to unite and consolidate a sense of identity in the global Basque diaspora.
Idahoan-Basques
Boise is host to a community of about 3,573 Basque-Americans. Prominent Basque-American elected officials in Idaho include longtime Secretary of State Pete T. Cenarrusa, his successor Ben Ysursa, both Republicans, former Boise mayor Democrat David H. Bieter, as well as Republican, J. David Navarro, the current Clerk, Auditor and Recorder of Ada County, the most populated county in Idaho. Mary Azcuenaga, an attorney who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve on the Federal Trade Commission, is a Basque-American born in Council, Idaho.
Basques were initially drawn to Idaho by the discovery of silver, in settlements such as Silver City. Those that did not directly become involved in mining engaged in ranching, selling beef and lamb products to the miners. While some such immigrants returned to Basque Country, many remained, later to be joined by their families following them in immigration. Exact counts of Basque immigrants to Idaho are not practical to determine, as the United States Census did not distinguish between Basques from other Spanish immigrants, though a majority of Spanish immigrants to Idaho likely self-identified as Basque.
Idaho achieved statehood in 1890 along with the first Basques arriving there around the same time. By 1912, some of the pioneers, such as Jose Navarro, John Achabal, Jose Bengoechea, Benito Arregui, John Echebarria, and Juan Yribar, were already settled and had property in the state.