Paraguay

Organised Basque life in Paraguay fits into two cities: Asunción, where the only recognised centre operates, and San Juan Bautista, where the grandson of an emigrant from Leintz-Gatzaga was in 2020 the president of a Basque house that is not on the official register. All of it is recent: it begins with an advertisement in the press in 1996.

The Euskal Etxea Jasone of Asunción

The only Basque centre in Paraguay recognised by the Basque Government was born from an advertisement in the press. In 1996 Pedro José Gamarra and Ramón Zubizarreta published a notice inviting the descendants of Basques to found a centre. Descendants answered, and so did people with no Basque ancestry who were interested in Basque culture.¹⁰ The Basque Government recognised the Euskal Etxea Jasone on 28 October 1997.¹¹¹²

Gamarra was its president for eight of its first ten years. In January 2006, with the Basque Argentine Daniel Elicetche at its head, the centre had more than two hundred members, a library, lecture series and a magazine of its own, and for that year it was announcing a publishing house, Basque classes and a dance group.¹⁰

On its fifteenth anniversary it organised the I Semana Vasca de Paraguay (First Basque Week of Paraguay), from 1 to 4 June 2011, in the year of the Paraguayan Bicentenary and with Galo Egüez as president. Miguel Ángel Elkoroberezibar presented his book on Irala and Bergara there, the historian Xabier Zabaltza spoke about the Basque language, and representatives of the Basque Government attended.¹³ The second, from 22 to 25 October 2012, brought to the Centro Cultural Juan de Salazar an exhibition for the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika, and also had a concert by Joseba Gotzon and the Día del Estatuto (Statute Day).⁶

Then came the changes of leadership. In March 2014 the president, Héctor Eizaguirre, stepped down for health reasons,¹⁴ and in November 2018 the centre was presided over by José Hernán Vargas Peña Apezteguía.²⁰ In July 2019 the Casa Vasca de Asunción organised a cultural day with dances, food and a talk by the historian Eduardo Nakayama.¹⁵

The city also has a País Vasco street, with a traffic island that holds the sculpture Gernika by Gustavo Beckelman, unveiled in 2001.¹⁶

San Juan Bautista (Misiones)

The other city is the city of the Sasiains. In July 2012, during the patron saint’s festivities of San Juan Bautista, the Basque community paid tribute to Sebastián Sasiain and announced the creation of a second Basque centre in the city.⁶ In 2020 the Paraguayan press mentioned a Casa Vasca de San Juan Bautista presided over by Numa Guillén, Sasiain’s grandson.⁸ It does not appear on the official register of centres.¹¹

On the register

The register of centres on this portal lists 1 recognised body in Paraguay, the Euskal Etxea Jasone of Asunción.¹¹