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Lisa Etchepare
January 31, 2007
Basque Cultural Center Essay
Whether hiding during dance practice breaks as a little kid, kicking
back and relaxing on the couch during Sunday lunches listening as the
voices of men singing at the bar drifted through the door, or dancing in
the kantxa during mass, the Basque Cultural Center has always been an
important facet of my life. The Basque Cultural Center has always
provided me with a place to go, a place to belong, and a place where I
could give back. It is a place that I would give any amount of time to
if it would insure that its traditions would live on.
Through activities like trips to sporting events and game nights the San
Francisco Basque Cultural Center has proved its ability to engage its
members, but is solely getting bodies through the door enough to make
sure the BCC lasts another 25 years? While I concede that attendance is
nine tenths of the battle, keeping a club alive and thriving hinges on
more than just numbers. If the goal of increasing participation is to
put people more in touch with their Basque heritage, I am not convinced
that the SF Basque Cultural Center is working to its full potential.
Athletic events are fun. They are social, and lets be honest, very few
things are more entertaining than heckling a rival team. Outings like
these accomplish half of the mission statement of those trying to get
the San Francisco Basque population more involved; they provide an easy
carefree environment in which people can come in contact with each other
and build friendships. If the BCC was merely a social organization,
activities like these would be all it needed. However, since the goal of
Basque Cultural Center is to keep traditions alive and pass down
cultural knowledge from generation to generation, as well as to provide
a social environment, some emphasis should be put on education. Now, I
understand that selling an educational event to people is like pulling
teeth. This is why it is very important that event coordinators inject
some Basque education into events without having the day turn into
something that resembles a lecture on the importance of dental floss.
The key word then is covertly. While most people will catch onto the
educational side of the events I’m about to describe, one can only hope
by that time they will either like them so much it will not matter, or
have learned something so it will not have been in vain.
I have yet to encounter a Basque person who did not enjoy drinking wine.
Why not then use the relaxed atmosphere that wine tasting creates to
host a covertly educational Basque event. By gathering wines from
different provinces of the Basque Country, whoever is doing the talking
is allotted the chance to give a brief, five to ten minute, history on
the different provinces before tasting begins. Wine tasting would be
fun; it has an educational element, and its relaxed and social. Another
example of an activity is inviting someone to come in and teach how to
make beignets, cheese, sausages, or some other Basque food. This event
is wholly educational, but at same time, it is something that people
like to do. The best part about these events is that you do not need to
invite an expert from Europe to host them. There are people within the
Cultural Center that are more than capable of providing this
information, and people are just as, if not more, interested in what
people they know have to say, than what total strangers have to say. In
this way, the Basque Cultural Center insures that knowledge is passed
on, while also maintaining financial security by not having to bring
instructors over from Europe.
If the BCC were to start out with events like these, say have one once a
month, after a few meetings they could move onto things that are even
more educationally oriented. For instance, I am sure that if the center
were to host an event where they brought in people who lived in San
Francisco before the Basque Cultural Center was created to talk about
the Basque Block that used to exist on Broadway St. in San Francisco,
people would attend. It would not have to be a big thing, just an hour
and a half of different people talking with some little refreshments
afterwards. Events do not have to be big and complicated, just something
that remind people every once in while where we come from, and what we
are carrying on. The Basque Center is important to me, I want to see it
survive for the next 25 years, but I would like to see it thrive with
all of its part intact. It would be a shame if in 25 or even 50 years
the bar was quite because nobody remembered the words of the songs to
sing them.
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