Forging Basque and Catalan Nationalism in the New World

Abstract

One of the major transformations in the political landscape of Spain in the late nineteenth century was the emergence of Basque and Catalan nationalism. These two forces confronted the process of Spanish nation-building, and their steady growth, particularly after the defeat of Spain in the Spanish–American War (1898), turned both nationalisms into the current, locally hegemonic political ideologies in the Basque Country and Catalonia. Even today, Spanish national identity is confronted in both regions by other national loyalties whose alternative discourses on the singularity of their own nations have permeated the local imaginary. Basque and Catalan nationalist parties have dominated local politics since the recovery of home rule after the last transition to democracy in the 1970s. The century following 1870 witnessed both domestic in-migration from the rest of Spain to these industrializing regions, and an exodus of Basques and Catalans to Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay and to a lesser extent Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States. Nationalist ideas permeated to the Basque and Catalan communities created in these host countries, leading to an efferves- cence of ideological debates and clashes between old and new national loyalties, and changes in the system of their diasporic institutions and orga- nizations. In this chapter, we will present an overview of the diffusion of Basque and Catalan nationalism in the diaspora, first dealing with each case separately and finishing with some compa