ABSTRACT
Music and art occur in many settings and forms. Both means of expression provide meaning-making practices where the addresser and the addressee participate in different capacities and create dynamic processes involving context and culture. The theme of the relationship between music and art and identity is growing in importance. Both music and art develop emotional, social, and cognitive ties. Art and music can shape and strengthen social and individual identities. They can express and maintain preexisting identities and can also provide resources to negotiate and contest identities and construct new ones. Both means of expression, consciously and/or unconsciously, provide individuals with the chance to understand themselves and their place in the world. That is why both music and art play a relevant role in diasporas, such as the Basque American diaspora in the West of the United States. Music and art serve as the strategies to explore individual and social identity; identity formation and construction are contested and diasporic consciousness invigorated. Basques in the American West are clear examples of identity negotiations through art and music. Several instances will be presented to evince that through creative ways, Basque Americans maintain, negotiate, and develop their identities and make meanings of their place in the world
