Centro Vasco Venezolano de Carabobo

The Centro Vasco Venezolano de Carabobo brings together the Basques whom the emigration of the fifties took to Valencia, which was then beginning to industrialise. The first documented arrivals came between 1950 and 1955: the doctor Claudio Alegría, from Gernika, the engineer José María Beotegui, from Bermeo, and José Luis Unamuno, from Durango; eight families settled in Chirgua. In 1960 more than two hundred Basques from Aragua, Carabobo and Lara met in Valencia with the delegate of the Basque Government, and from 1967 they had a place to meet: the restaurant of the Polígono de Tiro, run by the Bilbao family, where they celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Begoña and other festivities. From there came the centre, which held its first assembly on 13 December 1974 and which the Basque Government recognised in 1997.