Peru

The organised Basque community of Peru today fits into four houses, two in Lima and two in the interior, and one of them was the first that the Basque Government recognised anywhere in the world. This portal’s register of centres lists 4 recognised bodies in the country: the Euskal Etxea of Lima, the Limako Arantzazu Euzko Etxea, the Centro Cultural Vasco Peruano de Trujillo and the Asociación Civil Cultural Virgen del Juncal, in Urubamba (Cusco).¹⁵

The one in Lima opened the list. It was the first Basque centre in the world recognised by the Basque Government after the 1994 law: the Governing Council approved it on 28 February 1995, with number 051.01.001.01 in the register.⁶ It spent thirty years in the same premises in Miraflores, and in March 2019 it moved into new premises in that same district.¹²

The one in Trujillo is much more recent. It was born at a founding meeting in November 2017 and was recognised in December 2018, as the third Basque centre in Peru after those of Lima and Cusco.¹¹

The Basque Government is represented in the country by the Delegation of Euskadi in Chile, Peru and Colombia, based in Santiago de Chile.¹⁶ And there is a figure for those living there with Basque citizenship: in 2005, 407 citizens of the Basque Autonomous Community resident in Peru were registered on the electoral roll.⁶

The memory of that presence is still being written. In 2011 the Diccionario histórico biográfico de los vascos en el Perú y de peruanos de ancestro vasco was presented in Lima, the fruit of some 24 years of work.¹³ In 2013, the brotherhood organised eight weeks of events in Lima, Piura, Cajamarca, Trujillo, Jauja, Ica, Arequipa and Cusco.¹⁷ And in 2024 the Euskal Etxea presented La ruta vasca en Lima, a tour of the places in the city that bear a Basque imprint.¹⁴