NABO - Basque Convention culminates in Chino, California

The Basque Center of Chino (California) hosted this year’s NABO (North American Basque Organizations) Convention coinciding with the 40th edition of its annual local picnic.

The Chino Basque Club was founded in 1968 and today it counts over 130 members that actively try to promote Basque heritage in their Southern California home with this kind kind of celebration among other initiatives.

The program of activities began on Friday 29th of September at 7:00 p.m. local time with an encounter among members of the Basque community. The documentary ‘La Pelota Vasca' was screened after that.

The activities began on Saturday with an evening’s dinner-show that became a celebration full of music and Basque songs. Everybody danced with the help of several musicians that left the Basque Country to be in Chino.

Dancing groups like Hegohaize (Chino), Otsagi (Bakersfield) or Tafallako Jota & Garaztarrak (San Francisco) arrived on Sunday.

Besides, free bandanas (typical handkerchief that people tie over their shoulders during the “fiestas”) were given among the visitors, a tradition transplanted to Chino in the 1960s.

Future Basque Convention will be hold in Reno, NV, in 2009, followed by Boise, ID, Washington DC, Buffalo, WY, New York (100th Anniversary) and Bakersfield, CA.