The Centro Vasco Americano — The Basque Past in New York
Founded in 1913, it was the seed of what became the Euzko Etxea in Brooklyn.
The Centro Vasco Americano was founded in 1913, and decades later became the origin of what stands today as the Euzko Etxea in Brooklyn. It belonged to the same world as La Nacional: part of the activity and the culture that existed in Little Spain, and which this documentary set out to rescue from oblivion.
It was founded by Basques to look after their own culture in a city far from home.
Valentín Aguirre, centre, outside his Hotel Santa Lucía in New York — a photograph included in Little Spain.
Valentín Aguirre
Valentín Aguirre ran the Hotel Santa Lucía in New York, the arrival point for Basques coming to the city, and was connected to the Centro Vasco Americano. A photograph of him standing outside the hotel is among the material assembled in the film.
Little Spain and the Basque community
In the director’s own account: Little Spain arose in the second half of the nineteenth century and expanded until the late 1930s, when many more Spanish emigrants arrived on account of the Civil War and stayed — because of the bad situation in Spain, and because it coincided with years of economic progress in the United States.
The Basque presence was part of that neighbourhood from early on, alongside the Galicians, Asturians and Catalans who made up the Spanish colony of 14th Street.
Covered by El Diario Vasco
On 9 December 2014, El Diario Vasco ran “El pasado vasco en Nueva York” by Ricardo Aldarondo, reporting that the film includes references to the Centro Vasco Americano, and reproducing the photograph of Valentín Aguirre outside the Hotel Santa Lucía.