11 minute read
BULL-HEADED
Ander Etxanobe leads a lone bull, known as a suelto, up Cuesta Santo Domingo in Pamplona during his first run at the Fiesta de San Fermín in Spain—better known as the Running of the Bulls.
On the outside, he’s the typical Miami Beach resident: a professional with a great tan and a muscled physique. But every summer, Ander Etxanobe travels to Spain—where he has become one of the premier American bull runners in Pamplona’s famed Running of the Bulls. In the process, he’s rediscovered his own cultural heritage.
Etxanobe’s family’s Basque roots run deep in the Spanish soil. Decades ago, his parents’ families immigrated to the U.S., where they found work as shepherds. But eventually Etxanobe’s
Newspaper in hand, Etxanobe guides a suelto through the streets of Spain’s Ciudad Rodrigo during the city’s Carnival del Toro.
father decided to move the family back to the town of Mañaria in Basque Country. So at the age of 10, Etxanobe voyaged into a foreign world—a place where he knew little about the culture and less about the language. The local Basque school children bullied him; he tried to pick up the notoriously difficult language but struggled to master it.
“I’ve always been stuck between two identities,” Etxanobe says. “To Americans, I was this Basque guy. But when I got to Mañaria, they didn’t accept me either; they thought of me as an American.”
Eventually the family split. An international custody battle ensued, ending with Etxanobe returning to the U.S. with his mother, and his father remaining in Spain after losing his green card. “From the ages of 12 to 17, I never saw my dad,” Etxanobe says. “I had a chip on my shoulder and didn’t want to talk about it.”
Over time, Etxanobe says he lost his sense of his cultural heritage. He went to school stateside, landed a finance job for a California-based firm, and bought a condo in Miami Beach. Minus a few trips to the motherland, Etxanobe says he left his Basque roots behind him. “It was kind of like The Lion King,” he says. “Simba’s dad dies, and he goes off and lives his hakuna matata.” Still, something was missing. “I was out here on the beach in Miami relaxing. But that calling to go back started rolling over the waves,” Etxanobe says. “It was telling me to come back, to my rightful home you know, the kingdom of Navarra, Pamplona.”
Being Basque
When Etxanobe thinks about what it means to be Basque, he thinks of his grandfather, Martin Iturri, who grew up in the town of Urdaniz, just north of Pamplona. “My grandfather’s family was so poor that if they by chance were able to buy a few slices of jamón, my great-grandfather would tell the children, ‘You all eat the red part, the meat, and leave me just the fat.’” Iturri was poor but talented. “He was mesmerized by the accordion, but his family couldn’t afford to buy him one,” Etxanobe says. Family legend has it that Iturri watched local accordion players and took note of their techniques. When he was 17, a neighbor loaned him an accordion which he played so beautifully that a bar owner offered to pay him $100 to perform at the town’s annual fiesta. Iturri agreed, running home to tell his family; the money would help put food on the table.
Iturri played for three days. People packed the bar, dancing and buying food and drinks. Yet, when the fiesta ended, the bar owner refused to pay him. “[He] said that the music was for the whole town and the town should have to pay for it,” Etxanobe says. Iturri returned home to break the news to his family: the $100 and the full slices of jamón he dreamed of giving his father were not coming.
Homeward Bound
In 2017, Etxanobe began to feel the pull of his grandfather’s family roots. He returned to Spain for the Fiesta de San Fermín—more famously known as Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls. As he posted pictures to his social media accounts, Etxanobe’s cousin, Javier Iturri, saw the posts and reached out to meet up with him. “This time around in Spain was different,” Etxanobe says. “I felt more welcome, almost like I was home.”
As any experienced bull runner will tell you, the art of the run is to join the herd harmoniously and guide the bulls up the streets to the arena. The very best runners do this by running directly in front of the horns—in the very face of the bull. When a bull sees a runner in front of it, one of two things can happen: The bull will either reject the runner, or it will accept the runner as a sort of guide. When a bull accepts a runner, it will lock onto that individual, following him or her up the street. Legendary runners—like Aitor Aristregui and David Rodriguez—can lead a bull from a position just a few inches in front of its horns for 400 yards (nearly half the course).
But bulls don’t always choose to be guided. Sometimes a bull falls away from the pack, becoming what’s known as a suelto (or “lone one”). It’s a dangerous situation, because lone bulls become combative. That’s when great runners are needed to step in and use their skills to attract a suelto up the street.
When Etxanobe arrived in the Santo Domingo section of the run on the first day of the Fiesta de San Fermín, he sang the prayer to the patron saint that all bull runners sing and clutched a local newspaper—a tool that participants shake in reverence at the figure of San Fermín in his niche on the wall opposite the bull corral. But when the rocket went off to signify the release of the bulls, Etxanobe raised his newspaper and looked to the sky thinking of his grandfather and his Basque heritage. “It was like my newspaper was this torch they passed to me,” he says. “My family lit this torch for me, they gave me this gift of unconditional love, of work ethic, of passion, of sacrifice.”
A nearby runner tapped Etxanobe on the shoulder and pointed as the herd of bulls galloped directly toward them. Etxanobe flattened himself against a wall. Soon, he spotted a black suelto galloping through the streets with a second suelto following several yards behind. Etxanobe pulled himself off the wall and ran between the two bulls. “I didn’t even think about it,” he recalls. “I waved my paper with all my might, then he was on me. I felt him focused on me. He was so close. I dove to the side and his horn reached for me.” Then the bulls were gone, heading down the street toward the arena.
Afterward, Etxanobe met up with his cousin and extended family. When he recounted the story of his run, the consensus was clear: pictures of such a run would surely end up in the local newspapers. Etxanobe searched the internet on his cell phone, and tears filled his eyes as a photo of him running on the horns of the suelto appeared on the screen. He passed the phone around to family members who just weeks ago had seemed so distant. Now they circled around him, leaning in to see the photo of their kinsman having the run of a lifetime— and exemplifying the heart of Basque culture. “When I first came to Spain, I felt so rejected by my Basque heritage,” Etxanobe says. “But in that moment, I felt like I was finally home.
In the years since Etxanobe’s first run on the horns, he has gone to the other great bull runs in Spain. In San Sebastian de los Reyes outside of Madrid, Etxanobe ran shoulder-to-shoulder with Aristregui. Later, he voyaged to Ciudad Rodrigo just before COVID-19 hit. There, Etxanobe led sueltos up the streets of the city over several days. Eventually, he
found himself alone with bull-running great Rodriguez. Together, they led a suelto up the street. When they couldn’t get the animal to budge, Rodriguez asked Etxanobe if he could use his newspaper. Rodriguez tossed it toward the bull. It landed at his feet igniting a charge that ended with Rodriguez and Etxanobe luring the suelto into the arena—and Etxanobe earning his crown among the next generation of great bull runners.
Family Bonds
For Etxanobe, the success of that moment was sweet. But sometimes, success only means something when you see it reflected in the lives of those you love.
In the days following his accordion playing during the town fiesta so many years ago, Etxanobe’s grandfather sat in the center of town—hungry and feeling sorry for himself—when the mayor approached him. “Are you the one who was playing the accordion so beautifully during our fiesta?” the mayor asked. “I heard the bar owner didn’t pay you.” He handed Iturri $100, and asked him to play during the town’s next fiesta. Iturri knew just what to do with the money: He went to the butcher and purchased full slices of jamón for this father.
B a c k i n M i a m i B e a c h , E t x a n o b e k n o w s t h a t s a m e s e n s e o f f a m i l y p r i d e . H e ’ s s t i l l w o r k i n g i n fi n a n c e , s t i l l t r a v e l i n g t o S p a i n a s a t o p - t i e r b u l l r u n n e r . B u t h e h a s a l s o s p o n s o r e d h i s f a t h e r t o g e t h i s g r e e n c a r d b a c k . F o r h i s p a r t , h i s f a t h e r i s p r e p a r i n g f o r t h e U . S . c i t i z e n ’ s t e s t . F a t h e r a n d s o n a r e m a k i n g u p f o r a l o t o f l o s t t i m e . “ I ’ v e s p e n t m y a d u l t h o o d p u t t i n g t h e p i e c e s b a c k t o g e t h e r , ” E t x a n o b e s a y s . “ B u t t h r o u g h m y e x p e r i e n c e s r e t u r n i n g t o B a s q u e C o u n t r y h o n o r i n g m y g r a n d f a t h e r ’ s a n d m y f a m i l y ’ s l e g a c y a n d i m m e r s i n g i n t h o s e c u l t u r a l g i f t s , i t ’ s b e e n t h e g r e a t e s t j o y o f m y l i f e . N o w I l i v e w i t h t h e p e a c e o f k n o w i n g w h o I a m . ” «
