Hype for the Future 52M: More on Portugal

Portuguese Heritage Festivals Abroad

The New England region, and more specifically New Bedford, Bristol County, Massachusetts, is home to the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament on the first weekend of August every year. Traditionally associated with the culture of Madeira specifically, volunteers for the board were initially restricted to the 1915 convention of only males born in Madeira and male descendants. In 1998, organizational policy had been updated to allow sons of females born in Madeira to volunteer, and in April 2023, the board had started to permit female volunteers.

Perhaps the most difficult feature of the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament to understand externally is that the event is the largest ethnic festival in all of New England, but more importantly, that the festival in New Bedford is apparently the largest celebration of Portuguese heritage at not just the national level, but also at the global level. Traditional Portuguese cuisine is typically served at the event, of course, though overlap with cuisine styles associated with Spain, France, and to a lesser extent, Italy also exist, the Portuguese heritage of the cuisine provides a clear and reasonable distinction from the surrounding nationalities.

Hype for the Future 49A: Portuguese Heritage in the United States

While researching much of the New England region, a notable quirk of the region was the outstanding Portuguese influence to Rhode Island, the South Coast of Massachusetts, and even Hawaii. Although Hawaiian culture was seldom influenced by the Portuguese, the seafaring identity is a shared feature of Portuguese and Hawaiian customs, many of which are otherwise unrelated. Massachusetts and Rhode Island, however, are perhaps more influenced by the Portuguese, though the Portuguese population still only scratches the surface of the South Coast region, including Tiverton and Little Compton in addition to Bristol County, Massachusetts, where most of the Portuguese-American population has resided traditionally and continues to reside in the United States of America. Not just is the South Coast region nearing the Narragansett of cultural or historical significance to the Portuguese-Americans, but the region is also important to Brazilian and Cape Verdean populations, as well as to the culturally similar region of the Azores.