The Best Sheepherder. The Racial Stereotype of Basque Immigrants in the American West Between the End of the Nineteenth and the Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries

Laburpena

The present article explores the image of Basque immigrants in the American West between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, and how this image influenced on the integration process of this collectivity which was largely linked to sheep grazing. The main purpose of this article is to show how the ethnic label of Basques came to be equated with the racial category of «white» in the United States, specially after the passage of the immigration law of 1924, and how Basque immigrants entering the sheep industry benefited from these perceptions of a white identity. It examines the historical, sociological, and anthropological studies about the Basque immigrants in the American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by American scholars, and it shows how these works, influenced by the turnerian notion and the contemporary racist ideology, established a racial stereotype about the Basques, embodied in the «best sheepherder» image, which finally was echoed by the American popular press.