Basques in Boise

Past, present and future will all come together at Boise''s Basque Museum and Cultural Center. The Museum will be featuring three different exhibits representing as many different ages during the city''s international Basque cultural festival Jaialdi 2010.

Basque Whaling: Danger &' || 'amp; Daring on a Distant Shore, an exhibit about the ancient Basque Whalers, on show at the Museum since July 2007, will remain as the main exhibit throughout Jaialdi.

A Basque Pelota exhibit, on loan from the Basque Museum of Bilbao, will also be on show from July 27th through August 7th, across the street from the Basque museum.

The exhibit, "a great cooperative effort with the Historical Museum in Bilbao," according to Patty Miller, director of the Basque Museum of Boise, includes a video about the game of Basque pelota featuring music by Kepa Junkera.

The film received the FIAMP Award for Best Short Film at the International Festival of Audiovisual and Multimedia Heritage.

Once the festival is over, it will be time to move onto the future:&' || 'nbsp;The whaling exhibit will be replaced by Hidden in Plain Sight: the Basques, an exhibit produced by the Basque Museum for the Ellis Island National Monument Museum.

A portion of the exhibit will also be available for visitors in the main building of the museum from July 27th through August 2nd.

New era

For the museum of Boise, this latest exhibit marks the beginning of a new era.

Following a strategically pre-conceived plan and thanks to its already strong and secure structure, it was time to raise the museum''s profile as regards Basque history in the United States.

"Our hope for the following year is to have a smaller travelling component of Hidden in Plain Sight: the Basques going to other places and incorporating some local history from the places where it is going," says Patty Miller in an exclusive interview for eitb.com.

So far, education has been one of the main goals of the museum and it will continue to be so during the Jaialdi, when thousands of people are expected to visit the exhibits.

"What we can do is really educate, talk to people about who the Basques are, their important role in the history of the world and this country," Patty Miller explains.

"Two areas that the museum will be working on are educational outreach and the collections," she adds.

For this educational purpose, during the Jaialdi the museum will continue to offer tours of the Cyrus Jacobs Uberuaga house.

Visitors will have an opportunity to see what a boarding house was like in the 1920s and understand the important role that Basque boarding houses played in the history of Basque immigration to the United States.