At the end of the 19th century, a group of immigrants from Bizkaia fled the precarious economic situation of the Basque Country and headed to the American west in search of a more promising future. The first Basques settled in Idaho State to do what they knew best: tending and raising livestock. For years Idaho attracted a steady flow of people from the Basque Country, leading to the birth of an important Basque community. Today, more than a century later, that community has somewhere around 16,000 members, and although the number barely represents 1% of all locals, it has become a sign of identity for the North American state, of which one of the best-known references is the Jaialdi.
The first Jaialdi was held in Boise in 1987 as a cultural fest for North Americans of Basque ancestry. However, its success was such (almost 30,000 attendees in a state with some 1.4 million inhabitants) that its governor of the day, Cecil Andrus, asked the Basque community to organise events for the State centenary in 1990. The celebration harvested a new record of attendees and it was decided to hold a Jaialdi every five years. Today it is the biggest event to run periodically outside the Basque Country.
The Jaialdi unites many of the descendants of those first emigrants to Boise, California, Oregon and different South American countries to celebrate Basque culture and identity. For six days the festival runs exhibitions, concerts and myriad activities related to sport, dance and gastronomy with the Basque Country as their backdrop.
Jaialdi 2020
This year, 2020, the event representing a symbol of the Basque community abroad will kick off on July 28 with Basque Rock, taking animation into the street with stalls selling food and drink to the sound of music. For the following six days, the Basque Rural Sport Gala will occupy the Boise CenturyLink Arena, with exhibitions of txingas (weight carrying), harrijasotzailes (stone lifters), aizkolaris (trunk cutters) and all kinds of traditional and contemporary Basque rural sports. The Festa’ra gala will welcome a variety of North American and European groups to the Boise Morrison Center, while the Idaho Expo will unite some of the best examples of Basque crafts, fashion and literature. All of this, seasoned by different gastronomic spaces, will contribute to the Jaialdi’s reputation as one of the most iconic Basque cultural events to take place outside the Basque Country.