Puerto Rico

Organised Basque life in Puerto Rico today runs through a single association. The Basque Government’s official register recognises one Basque entity on the island: Vascos en Puerto Rico, Inc., in San Juan, founded in 1995 and recognised in 1996.¹

Almost everything known about it from the inside dates from September 2007, when lehendakari Ibarretxe visited the island, the first visit by a lehendakari to Puerto Rico. The association then had some eighty members and had been without premises of its own for three years. Its first president had been Jesús Lasaga, from 1995 to 2005, and he had been succeeded by Eduardo Cifuentes. It published an informal newsletter, Gure Etxea, with no fixed schedule, devoted to “the news that never appears in the usual media: the positive news about the Basque Country”.² Its secretary, Ricardo Marrero, had taught Basque at the University of Puerto Rico in the 2005-2006 academic year.²

More than sixty members of the Basque community attended the reception with the lehendakari in San Juan.³