After more than a century, women take a formal role in New Bedford’s massive Madeiran Feast

New Bedford, Massachusetts’ Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, a cultural festival with religious roots, is billed as the largest Portuguese feast in the world. It’s more than a century old, but this year, behind the scenes, something very big is changing. For the first time — and under threat of a lawsuit — women have been allowed to join the Feast Committee.

An impromptu dance a little bit like a conga line has started at the Feast grounds in New Bedford, to the beat of lively Portuguese music playing from the sound system. But it’s only a break from the day’s real task: the hanging of the greens.

On the Sunday before the Feast, volunteers go out to Westport to cut bayberry. They fill an entire roll-off, and it’s been emptied here, in the middle of this open-air building.

The greens will be lashed to about 70 metal arches to decorate the parade route.

Bayberry fragrance is everywhere, and the energy here is contagious — not just because this is a celebration of family, and love, and heritage, but also because three generations of women are here — and their status has changed.

“I think everyone — you can see, everyone’s here with open arms,” Jenna Peixoto, 29, said. “I just flew in yesterday, but … I’ve just felt nothing but love. And I think most of the women could agree with that as well.”

She lives in Georgia now, but she’s one of seven women who agreed to sue the Madeiran club, Club Madeirense S. S. Sacramento, which runs the Feast, if the men wouldn’t let women join the much-honored Feast Committee and the club itself.

A vote to allow women failed last fall. Then, in April, armed with the potential lawsuit, supporters finally got the 75% majority of men’s votes they needed.

“We’re so excited,” Peixoto said. “You know, my sister’s on the committee, my cousins, my aunt, my grandmother. It’s just — it’s different. We’re seeing the feast through a new light, that we’re able to actually be a part of the planning.”

Her great-grandfather was one of four men from Portugal’s Madeira islands who founded this feast, yet her grandmother was unable to serve — until now.

She’s here, sitting in a chair, trimming the bayberry to make sure it’s right. Her name is Maria Lurdes Coutinho Peixoto, and she is 87 years old.

“It’s hard to believe that we finally got in,” she said. “We’ve been waiting [for] this for many years.”

Women have volunteered all along, doing preparation and working in the food and souvenir stands.

But she says she never thought she would see this change in her own lifetime.

“Because the men are stubborn,” she said. “A lot of the men were unhappy about it. But we’re here, and we’re here to stay.”

During the April vote, Jane Gonsalves was waiting outside. She’s a former city councilor in New Bedford and another of the group who hired a lawyer. She says the secret ballot was contentious.

“That’s what we’ve heard,” she said. “I mean, there are people that are really unhappy about it. … And that day, as the members left the meeting, there were a lot of members that didn’t talk to us on the way out, didn’t congratulate us, didn’t look at us, anything.”

She says a loss in court or a settlement would have cost the club money, and possibly its nonprofit status. So, the men ended up with little choice.

She’s expecting some bumps along the road to inclusion. But she says she still feels good about the vote — just not naively so.

Some men have openly supported the change. One of them is John Alves, vice chair of the Museum of Madeiran Heritage, adjacent to the Feast grounds.

“While on the outside, we look like an old feast — you know, frying linguica, putting the money in the cigar box — we’re not — you know, this is serious business.”

With the full inclusion of women, he says the club is already reaping benefits. Women are bringing new skills in things like law, public relations, and “all kinds of services that an organization like ours needs now.”

“And we know the responsibility of that, because we support a lot of charities, a lot of scholarships, and we need to do this right,” he said.

Over at the Feast grounds, each time the volunteers finish a bayberry arch, they lift it high to walk it out to the street. A cheer goes up to celebrate.

With every arch, the women here get closer to Sunday’s parade, on the closing day of the Feast. They’ll be cheered in their first public recognition as members of the committee.

Peixoto says it’s going to be very emotional.

“But very incredible, to just feel the connection to my great-grandfather, while I stand next to my grandmother,” she said. “So — just feeling very loved and very connected to my heritage right now.”

And her grandmother? She’s ready, too.

“Oh, I’m so happy,” she said. “I talk about it, I get goosebumps. … And my granddaughters kept saying, ‘When is our turn?’ We finally got our turn.”

Every year, the club takes a group photo of the Feast Committee — men, in matching suits. Those photos line the museum walls, dating back to the early 1900s.

For many here, this year’s photo — and Feast — will go down in family lore as the year that keeping a culture alive didn’t hold anyone back.

This story was originally published by CAI, The Cape and Islands NPR Station.