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It’s hard to get your arms around what has been going on with the guys who run New Bedford’s wonderful Portuguese Feast.
The organizers of the Feast, arguably New Bedford’s most beloved annual event, some 50 years after the dawn of the women’s movement, continue to be determined to keep out their own mothers, daughters and sisters from being members of the club that runs the festival.
Oh, they don’t mind the women actually working at the Feast.
It’s much appreciated if they will cook the food, make the costumes and garland wreaths, pour the wine and beer, work the soda machines, hold the parade banners and take the tickets.
They just don’t want the women to help organize the thing.
Because, you know, organizing things is just for men. Even if what the club is organizing is a very public four-day carnival each August. And even if it’s highly dubious that Massachusetts law allows a group running this kind of public event to discriminate against women this way.
The Feast, if you are local and somehow don’t know it, is officially the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, an originally religious-based festival that long ago evolved more into a cultural and secular celebration than anything else. Yes, there’s still a procession to Immaculate Conception Church to kick off the honors. But they certainly don’t ask you about your devotion to the Blessed Sacrament when you buy your tickets to the rock bands or buy a carne d’espeto on those very hot nights at the beginning of August.
No, the Feast is now our annual great South Coast reunion. It’s a time when young and old, long-timers and blow-ins gather together to celebrate our Luso-American and Greater New Bedford heritage. It’s our celebration of us.
For those who might not know the history, the so-called Portuguese Feast is a feast with roots in the island of Madeira, one of the two autonomous regions of the nation of Portugal. There are other, smaller feasts in this very Portuguese corner of New England held locally each summer, organized by Portuguese-American folks with roots in the Azores and the mainland. But the Feast feast is the Madeira feast.
Until 1998, you had to be the son of a Madeiran man to be a Feast member. But the guys running things are not totally against practical stuff. With a growing shortage of volunteers 26 years ago, they changed the bylaws to allow sons of Madeiran women to also become the “festeiros” who volunteer to keep the August celebration going. But no women. No “festeiras” with an “a”’
Yes, every woman, who has ever taken pride in her Madeiran father or mother, or who has ever devoted her time and love to the Feast, and who wanted to be a “festeira,” has been denied.
That is not the case on the island of Madeira itself.
A 2005 film, “Festa,” went to the village of Estreito da Calheta where the Blessed Sacrament festival first evolved and found that, lo and behold, they actually allow women to be members of the feast committee. But not here in the cosmopolitan world of the United States of America.
No, here in the New World it’s said to be the “tradition” to have only men since the Feast was first founded in the first decades of the 20th century.
So last October, when a group of Madeiran women tried once again — they’ve been trying for years now — to convince the 300 or so male members of the Feast to allow them in, the answer was once again “Nao.”
But it was not a resounding “Nao.”
Of the 126 members who voted, the vote was actually 63 to 63, or 50% percent to 50%.
The problem?
The bylaws say that in order to change the Feast rules you need a 75% vote. So the 12 women who applied were not even close. It’s like the U.S. Senate, you need an overwhelming consensus to change just about anything.
Some Clube S.S. Sacramento members, in the wake of the latest effort, evidently believe that American “woke culture” is infiltrating this thing of theirs.
But here’s the problem. You have all these daughters of Madeiran fathers and mothers who just want to be a part of the traditions so important to their own families. They don’t just want to cook and pour the Madeiran wine, they want to be equals.
Tara George is one of them.
A graduate of the University of Connecticut and Southeastern Massachusetts Law School, George is by any measure an accomplished woman. She has been working at the Feast since 1999. She started in the food booths, then sold tickets, mixed drinks and finally graduated to pouring Madeira wine.
She works with the same group every year, and takes time from her busy life as an attorney and working on her father’s farm, to devote four to six days to the festival every August.
The Feast family has become her family after all these years.
“I love the Feast,” she said. “It’s a huge part of my life.”
Along with six other local women, including former City Councilor Jane Gonslaves, George has let the present Feast members know that they will proceed with a lawsuit if the members don’t relent and let their Madeiran sisters in.
George has never been a vocal critic, she said, but the 50-50 vote last October was the last straw. She believes she deserves to be a member.
“I don’t want to hurt them,” she said. “I just want to be included.”
The women threatening to sue say that they greatly appreciate the many male Feast members who have stuck their necks out for them, and backed their effort to become members. But with the 75% rule stacked against them, they say the time has come to ask for the protections that Massachusetts law affords them. They have retained a prominent New Bedford law firm and Adrienne Beauregard-Rheume who will represent them in court if the half of the club that is resisting equity continues to do so.
The women point out the precedent 2005 case of the Lakeville Eagles, a social club that runs a bar and pool tournament, that was forced to admit women after a court case. They say the law is clearly on their side.
One person whom you think the Feast club might take pride in is former City Councilor Gonsalves. A former 20-year New Bedford city councilor, Gonsalves, along with present Councilor Ian Abreu, is one of the best known persons of Madeiran heritage in the entire city.
Abreu, by the way, supports the effort to allow women into the club.
A graduate of Providence College with a degree in economics, Gonsalves is a two-time City Council president and a longtime former member of the board of the YWCA during a time period when the nonprofit built a new building to service residential and child care needs. She has the experience and background to do great things for The Feast’s charitable endeavors.
You would think the Feast could benefit greatly from the skills and experience of someone of Gonsalves’ background.
George and Gonsalves are not the only Madeiran women of accomplishment asking in. Among the other seven potential litigants are a physical therapy doctor, a nurse, a speech language pathologist and a pharmacist.
Now, I am not a perfect person to be making this case. I’m neither a Portuguese-American nor a woman. But I know injustice and unfairness when I see it. It would be different if these accomplished women did not want the honor of being a part of the city’s biggest Portuguese-American venture, but they do want it.
Portugal is one of the great countries of world history. And its women, like the women of other cultures and societies, know that their time has come.
The present second most powerful minister in the Portuguese government, the minister of the presidency, is a sociologist named Maria Viera da Silva. Another great Portuguese contemporary woman of accomplishment is Daniela Seixas, a medical doctor and Ph.D in neuroscience. She is the founder and CEO of Tonic App, a mobile platform for physicians.
It is the time of women. Think about how much talent the Feast is going without because it has not welcomed in its own Madeiran mothers, daughters and sisters to be part of its important public service and part of New Bedford’s identity.
It’s time for the Club Madeirense S.S. Sacramento to welcome the women in, and not make this go to a lawsuit.
Email columnist Jack Spillane at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
Sooo, hasn”t the Feast been thriving? Thriving with only men involved? What about the adage, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”? All the avós knew their place. Where’s the respect?
The lawsuit will be irrelevant once their corporate sponsors find out they’ve been propping up a discriminatory organization for years. The feast committee will be forced to either change their tune or close up shop as disgraced misogynists.
If the Committee and Club fail to do the right thing are they really ready for a lawsuit? Women scorned can be a dangerous force.
Women have worked tirelessly to promote the feast and recognition for them is long overdue. As a 2 time feast committee person I wholly endorse their right to serve with honnor and recognition.
Women are the backbone of the feast. They are out there doing everything except being part of the decision making process. This is unfair. Even on the island they have decided that women deserve a seat at the decision making table but not here. It appears that our men are more backwards than the ‘old’ country and need to learn from the others. Maybe a good woman’s protest is needed on all four days. Maybe we need to walk away the tradition if they do not see us as equals deserving a place at the table of decision making with them. Maybe sponsors need to be made aware that they are also supporting this by supporting them.