Basque Mexicans

Basque Mexican
Vasco mexicano

Luis Echeverría
Regions with significant populations
Mexico: Mainly Northern, Western and Cental Mexico
Languages
Spanish
Religion
Catholic or in a lesser degree Atheist
Related ethnic groups
Other White Mexican, Basque people

Basque Mexican (Spanish Vasco mexicano or simply Vasco) is a Mexican person of full, partial, or predominantly Basque ancestry, or a Basque-born person living in Mexico.

Seen in Mexico by the whole Euskalerria concept, basque descendants can be from Navarre, Euskadi or Iparralde. It is one of the most important and numerous groups of European people in Mexico and one of the biggest Basque diasporas in the world.

Basques can be found in every corner of Mexico, including names of cities and regions such as: Arriaga in Chiapas, Durango a State, Reynosa and Laredo in Tamaulipas, Arizpe in Sonora, Bernal in Queretaro or Narvarte in Mexico City, and even dating by the colonial times, Arizona has its name for being and extension of the New Navarre in the province of Sonora, and least not mention in California, Nevada, Idaho, Utah and elsewhere of the Western U.S. is the Basque American familial link with Basques in Mexico.

An estimated 125,000 to 250,000 Mexicans have some amount of Basque descent and that community has increased in size from immigration from Spain in the early 20th century. The Spanish Civil War in the 1930s brought over tens of thousands of refugees from the Basque Country to political asylum in Mexico and Latin America.

Most Mexicans of Basque descent are concentrated in the cities of Monterrey, Saltillo, Camargo, and the states of Jalisco, Durango, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and Coahuila. The Basques were important in the mining industry, many were ranchers and vaqueros (cowboys), and the rest small shops owners in major cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara and Puebla.

In Baja California, the Basque surname of Aramburuzabala is today one of the most known in that state, as well as in the neighboring states of Sonora and Coahuila.

Basque names are found in many places throughout Northeastern Mexico, such as Durango, Reynosa,( Nuevo) Laredo, Victoria, Zuazua and Arramberri - the first province in the north of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico) to be explored and settled by the Spanish, Nueva Vizcaya, included the actual states of Chihuahua and Durango.

Many notable Mexicans have been of Basque extraction, such as Agustín de Iturbide, emperor of the First Mexican Empire, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, seventeenth century scholar and poet, Juan de Oñate, Francisco "Pancho" Villa, Vicente Fox, as well as directors and actors: María Félix, Dolores del Río, and Alejandro González Iñárritu.