jueves, 31 de julio de 2025

Jaialdi/ San Inazio, the Basque Festivals in Idaho


Jaialdi is a major Basque Festival held in Boise, Idaho, every five years. Thousands of Basques migrated to the Western states of the U.S. in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, to work as shepherds or farm labourers in the cattle ranches. In 1987, the first Jaialdi festival began to celebrate Basque heritage in Boise and now it is the largest and most popular festival in the Basque diaspora. San Inazio is a smaller festivity that takes place every year, both events are organised by the Basque Center in Boise.

Jaialdi 2025 runs from July 29th to August 3rd. B1 students can read the article "Drinks and dancing though the decades: Boise's Basque Festival Jaialdi returns this week" written by Jaime Gear on Boise State Public Radio, and they will find interesting expressions like: to chop, an attendee, a [basque] staple, the Gold Rush, a tight-knit [community], a garb, buoyant, to toss, a hay bale. For B2 students, George Prentice's story "Dancing, wagon lifting, chorizo and kalimotxo. Hey Boise, here's your Jaialdi 2025 preview" is more suitable, as the text summarizes a more complex (13':06") radio interview to Lael Uberuaga in "Morning Edition" (C1 level). Some of the expressions in the article are: an overstatementto skip, to date back [to 1987], a footprint, to stretch, naively, to reconvene, to gather, a vendor, to get underway, an attendee, to ramp up, to dub, herri kirolak, a hay bale, to hoist, an anvil, to be hard-pressed.

If you want further information about Basque culture in Idaho, you can check The Basque Museum and Cultural Center (BMCC) in Boise, which includes Esther Ciganda's The Immigrant All Around podcasts -where Pedro Ciganda's bilingual account of how he picked up English and how he adjusted to the American way of life, is highly recommendable, and the BMCC Oral Histories, a library of interviews to numerous Basque migrants like José Ramón Larrea, or their desendants like Juan Pablo Aramburu who talk about their experiences in the U.S.A. You can also watch a Visit Idaho video about the Basque Block in Boise or another short video from Idaho News 6 about San Inazio 2024, the smaller festival which is held annually.

Finally, C1 students can watch the KTVB report with subtitles below about Jaialdi, where they will find expressions like: gamut, a thunderstorm, to honour [the culture], to head [to], a closure, to check out, to shapeseating.