Basque Families

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Basque Families

Any discussion of the Basque family must begin by acknowledging that Basque families can and do exist outside the Basque country. They differ even within the Basque country because sociological and political definitions are framed by the influence of two different states, Spain and France. The region known as the Basque country comprises an area of a hundred square miles (about the size of the state of Rhode Island) historically divided into seven provinces. Three of the provinces are in France (Behe-Nafarroa, Lapurdi, and Zuberoa), and four are in Spain (Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and Navarra). The provinces in France are contained within the official Département des Pyrenées-Atlantiques.

Political changes in Spain since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 have affected the names used to refer to the provinces there. With the Spanish Constitution of 1978, Araba, Bizkaia, and Gipuzkoa became the Autonomous Community of Euskadi, and Navarra became the Autonomous Community of Navarra. In the Basque language, Euskara, the provinces on the French side of the border are called Iparralde "the north side," and those in Spain are Hegoalde, "the south side." Many Basques refer to the Basque country as a whole (the traditional seven provinces) as Euskal Herria, the Basque Country. The variation in the spelling of Navarra (the Spanish spelling) and Nafarroa (the Basque spelling in Behe-Nafarroa) is representative of political differences of opinion that have long existed between Navarra and the provinces now known as Euskadi.

Euskara has played an important role in many aspects of Basque life and politics, but the language had no standardized spelling for many centuries. During the mid-twentieth century, the process of standardization began in earnest. As a result, any search for information about the Basque provinces must take into account the variable spellings for each: Araba (Alava); Behe-Nafarroa (Basse-Navarre); Bizkaia (Vizcaya, Biscay); Gipuzkoa (Guipúzcoa); Lapurdi (Laburdi, Labourd); Navarra (Nafarroa, Navarre); and Zuberoa (Xiberoa, Soule).

The Basque history of migration means that there are also populations in the Americas, the Philippines, Australia, and other parts of the world who identify themselves as Basque. However, after the second generation, many of the family traits of these groups are strongly influenced by the culture in which they are living. The Basque provinces in rural agricultural Iparralde are very small, and the population is about one-tenth that of the provinces in Spain. For that reason, the Basque family described here is assumed to dwell in Hegoalde, unless otherwise noted.

Family Size

Basque families are predominantly Catholic, and because of this many people are surprised to learn that the Basque country has the lowest birth rate in Spain, which in turn has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world (Reher 1997). During the regime of Francisco Franco, several laws were passed that affected families in many ways. The 1938 Labor Charter prohibited married women from working outside the home, so couples got in the habit of postponing marriage so that the woman might continue to earn an income. The right to work outside the home was restored in 1961 (Jones 1997), but the tendency to marry late remained. At the same time, social pressures strongly discouraged having children out of wedlock.

Educational practices were also changing throughout the twentieth century, and as people became more educated, the birth rate experienced a significant decline. The level of illiteracy in Spain was cut by more than one-half between 1970 and 1992 (Reher 1997; Boyd 1997). Perhaps the biggest impact of education on Basque families at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the decision about which schools the children should attend, a question that often revolves around whether the parents want the children educated in Spanish or in Euskara.

Although families have few children, rural households are still multigenerational, including grandparents, parents, and children. Often, unmarried siblings remain at home until they either marry or seek work elsewhere. This rural model has become less common since the end of the twentieth century, when the majority of the Basque population shifted to urban centers. However, the rural model has great cultural significance in the Basque country and has not lost all of its influence on the modern family.

Gender Roles

During the 1940s, Franco's Falangist ideology was transformed into laws that denied women the right to work outside the home, did away with divorce, established severe penalties for female adultery, and discriminated against children unfortunate enough to be born out of wedlock (Astelarra 1995). Changes to these laws emerged slowly from the 1960s through the 1980s. Women's right to work was restored in 1961, access to an abortion if the health of the mother is at risk was granted in 1985, and divorce became legal in 1981 (Jones 1997), although separation is much more popular than divorce. Gender roles in Basque families are slowly being transformed by these legal changes and by the impact of globalization on regional cultures. However, these changes are difficult to measure and vary from family to family.

Traditional gender roles continued to predominate throughout the 1990s, so much so that the Women's Municipal Service of Bilbao launched a program in 1994 to cross-train women and men in certain elementary tasks that were considered the domain of the opposite sex. Women were trained to replace washers, change light bulbs, paint a wall, and fix a flat tire, while men were taught to sew on a button, prepare a simple meal, and do the laundry (Ostolaza 1997).

Gender roles are a facet of Basque family life that appear highly resistant to change. The overall impression is still one of traditional gender roles, with women responsible for housework and childcare while men work outside the home. If a woman takes advantage of the opportunity to earn extra income outside the home, she is still expected to fulfill her duties at home. Studies assert that Basque women continue to feel responsible for domestic tasks and teach their daughters to feel the same way, while men continue to distance themselves from housework and childcare (Pérez de Lara 1995; Rodríguez 1996). Girls are expected to help their mothers, while boys are generally free from such obligations.

Daily Life

The school day for Basque children allows for a lengthy midday break during which the students are bused home for lunch, then bused back to school for the rest of the afternoon. The elementary schedule can vary from school to school, but two examples from the Bilbao area are typical. On one schedule, students are in class from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., followed by a two-hour break, then back to school from 2:30 p.m. until 4:30 p.m. Another schedule from the same area has children in class from 10:15 a.m. until 1:15 p.m., followed by a two-hour break, and then back to class from 3:15 p.m. until 5:15 p.m.

This traditional custom of a long midday break for what historically was the main meal of the day is slowly giving way in the business world to a schedule more typical of the United States because of the influx and influence of international corporations such as IBM, but such changes have not yet taken effect in the schools. Although some schools offer lunch programs, most children still go home for lunch. Women are expected to prepare the midday meal. Many small shops in the Basque country still maintain business hours from eight to one and four to eight in the evening (with some variations), making shopping a challenge for working women whose breaks in the day coincide with the closing of the shops.

Basque families watch less television than do North American families. Prime time begins at 10:00 p.m. and extends to 1:00 a.m. The hours after work, weather permitting, are more likely to be spent strolling along the avenues with family and friends. Parents with children are a common sight in parks and town squares, where they visit or read or take in the air while the little ones play. Older children spend long hours in the company of their cuadrillas, a Spanish term referring to one's closest friends. Adults often move from tavern to tavern, sipping a single small beverage at each one before moving on. The crowds in these taverns are predominantly male, but with each new generation, more and more women take part.

Language in the Family

Not all Basque families speak Euskara, and in many families, some members speak it, while others do not. In these cases, families conduct conversations in the language understood by all. Situations are common where one parent speaks Euskara, and the other speaks only Spanish. Since monolingual speakers of Euskara have disappeared, those who speak the Basque language are also bilingual in either Spanish or French. As a result, a household with linguistically mixed parents will generally communicate in Spanish. Even in homes where Euskara is spoken, Spanish is so prevalent in the surrounding society and in the media that the children will pick it up from their friends and by watching television. By the end of the twentieth century, there were several Basque-language radio stations and one Basque-language television channel, but channels that broadcast in Spanish and French far outnumbered them.

Some Basques feel that Euskara defines who they are. They believe that the only true Basque is one who speaks the language. This point of view has its basis in the preeminent role that language played in the definition of Basque nationalism generated by the founders of ETA (Euzkadi ta Askatasuna, "Basque Country and Freedom") in 1959 (Tejerina 1992). Other Basques feel that it is more important to be born and raised in the Basque country, whether one speaks the language or not. From this point of view, a family can be completely Basque and speak nothing but Spanish.

The language question has great importance in the Basque country. Many families quit speaking Euskara when Francisco Franco came to power after the Spanish Civil War. Franco made it illegal to speak any language but Spanish. Since the Basque country was on the losing side of the Civil War conflict, Basques felt particularly targeted and threatened by these prohibitions against minority languages. To protect their children, many parents insisted that only Spanish be spoken in the home. In these families, Euskara was lost.

After Franco's death, the establishment of a new Spanish constitution (in 1978) allowed Euskadi and Navarra (and the other autonomous communities of Spain) to have control over their own school systems. It then became necessary for Basque parents to decide whether their children would be educated in Spanish or in Euskara. Since fluency in Euskara is often required to obtain employment, especially for government jobs and teaching positions, many parents choose the Euskara option for schooling their children. Sometimes even parents who speak no Euskara choose to send their children to an ikastola, a school were all the subjects are taught in Euskara. Many others choose schools that teach half the day in Euskara and half in Spanish. The least favorite option in the Basque country is that of education in the Spanish language with Euskara treated as just another subject.

In Iparralde, Basque parents have four educational options. The most popular, with 85.5 percent of elementary school children enrolled, is the all-French option. Until the late 1970s, this was the only option available. Since 1983, students have been offered four options: the original all-French option; all-French with the exception of a class for learning Euskara; half of the instruction in French, the other half in Euskara; and all-Euskara in pre-school with the introduction of French in elementary school, increasing the amount of French to nine hours out of twenty-eight (Jauréguiberry 1993).

At the end of the twentieth century, despite a quarter century of efforts to reclaim Euskara, in Hegoalde three out of four residents over the age of fifteen indicated that Spanish was their first language, and in Iparralde, three out of four claimed French (Euskal Herriko 1996). Whether a family speaks Euskara or not, there has been a widespread movement during the last twenty-five years of the twentieth century to give children Basque names on their official papers. As a result, there is now an entire generation of sonorous first names such as: Gorka, "George"; Gotzon, "Angel"; Iker, "Visitation"; Koldo, "Louis;" and Unai, "Shepherd"; for boys; and Edurne, "Snow"; Maite, "Darling" or "Darlene"; Nere, "Mine" or "Mia"; Nekane, "Dolores"; and Itxaso, "Sea" for girls.

Families and Political Prisoners

For more than a century, tension has existed between the Basque country and the central government of Spain. As a result of the radical Basque nationalist activities of the middle and late twentieth centuries, most families in the Basque country either know someone who is in prison or have had a family member incarcerated. These prisoners are often housed far from the Basque country, and families must make special efforts to stay in touch. A simple visit may require a lengthy trip across Spain or north to Paris. Even if they have no personal experience of the situation of political prisoners, Basques write much graffiti and put up many posters declaring support for these individuals, especially in the cities. Even in a family-oriented event such as the Korrika, a long-distance walk/run fundraiser for Basque-language literacy efforts, the absent prisoners are represented by participants who carry their photographs on posters as they run their leg of the course (del Valle 1994). The question of whether or not to become involved in activities that support the movement to free these prisoners, or to take part in political activities that could result in such imprisonment, has the potential to tear a family apart. To make matters more complex, not all Basques see these prisoners as different from criminals. The question of the Basque prisoners is one of the issues that affect Basque families every day.

Although living in the Basque country ensures that a Basque family must think about the issue of nationalism and what it means to their lives, not all Basques are nationalists, and even among those who demonstrate pronationalist sentiment, there exists a sliding scale that extends from lip service to radical activism. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a conservative political movement began gaining strength in Euskadi, and in the Basque context "conservative" usually translates as antinationalist.

Basque Families in North America

For American Basques, especially those in the United States, Euskara is peripheral to Basque identity (Urla 1987; Urla 2000). Close-knit family groups are an important part of Basque-American culture. Basqueness is very much a family issue, and in families where only one parent is of Basque descent, the children are often raised with a high consciousness of their Basque ancestry. The families most actively involved in maintaining their ethnic heritage belong to Basque clubs where they meet regularly with other Basques in their community to enjoy traditional foods, encourage their children to learn Basque dancing, and celebrate their ethnicity. The North American Basque Organizations, Inc. (NABO) is a federation of the Basque clubs of North America and a group with liaisons to similar federations elsewhere and to the Basque government. Children can attend the NABO-sponsored Udaleku summer camp to improve their dance skills, study Euskara, learn to play traditional musical instruments, participate in Basque games and sports (such as the card game mus or the handball relative pelota), and sing Basque songs. These families consider Basqueness something to be worked at and sought after.

Outside the Basque country, European politics and issues such as the state of political prisoners are generally not a family concern. Catholicism remains the predominant religion among Basque emigrant families and their descendants. Gender roles in these families tend to resemble those of the surrounding majority culture.

Not all emigrant Basques have maintained the link to their ethnicity. Many descendants of early settlers in Latin America and some descendants of more recent emigrants to other parts of the world no longer identify themselves as Basque. Conversely, there are also many families who still consider themselves Basque although their children may only be one-half, one-fourth, or even one-eighth Basque.

See also:Spain

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