Basque center

In the times of the European colonization of the Americas Basque institutions arose in Perú, Mexico (Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola Vizcaínas), etc. But it was in the 19th century when they began to prepare the Basque centers that we have today. These dates also coincide with the massive emigration to America and the choice of new destinations. Most of them were travelling to Argentina and Uruguay. It is not known which was exactly the first Basque center that was created in this epoch, but it is possible to be the Basque Center of Havana, the capital city of Cuba in 1868, even though until now it was the Basque Center of Montevideo, in 1876. The certain thing is that it was a very extended phenomenon in the whole of America.

Afterwards there was another big wave of Basque emigration with the political exile of the Spanish postwar period, what contributed to the renaissance of the Basque centers that received new emigrants who were escaping from the civil war. They thought it was going to be for a short period of time but in many cases they did not return home. Some of the countries that received the most number of exiles of the Spanish Civil war were Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and especially Argentina.

In the Basque Country, they approved in the Basque Parliament the Law by which the relations with Basque communities of the exterior were regulated. It is provided to this the legal necessary base for the Basque Government.

Basque centers are defined as associative entities. They are legally constituted out of the Basque Country. They have the following objectives:

• To contribute to the strength of the Basque collectivities and Basque centers, favoring his cohesion and the efficiency of his associative actions.
• To preserve and promote the links of the Basque collectivities and Basque centers with the Basque Country.
• To project the recognition of the reality of the Basque Country where the Basque collectivities are located, promoting activities of spreading, impulse and development of the culture and of the Basque economy.
• To benefit relations, specially social, cultural and economic relations with different countries that rely on Basque collectivities, institutions and different social agents.
• To facilitate the establishment of communication channels between Basque residents out of the territory of the Basque Autonomous Community and the public powers of it.

The approval of the Law in the Basque Parliament, without any vote against it, supposed the beginning of a new phase of relation between the collectivities of the exterior and the public Basque institutions.

• Basque diaspora
• Basque people

• Euskaletxeak.net.