Annual Portuguese Festival

The Portuguese Festival of San Joaquin County is a time to celebrate, share, and teach others about a new/strong culture.  The now 2nd Annual Festival is where elders, parents, teens, and kids come to see a closer look into the history and ways of Portugal. The San Joaquin Valley is known for its higher population of immigrants from Portugal. 

Portugal is a predominantly Roman Catholic country.  Portugal has a large number of cultural landmarks ranging from museums to ancient church buildings, to medieval castles all over the country.  The world’s oldest bookstore in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon. Portugal is also the oldest country in Europe. 

Bacalhau is considered Portuguese national food. It is not always served in a casserole styled dish, there is, in fact, no traditional recipe for Bacalhau and it has over a hundred different ways to make the traditional dish of Portugal. 

The Portuguese Festival is now postponed because of the current COVID-19 pandemic, but the event was going to showcase traditional Portuguese dancing, music, and cuisine. There were to be booths full of traditional Portuguese jewelry and clothing. The Portuguese people always wanted to present themselves as wealthy and clean. So, their jewelry would either be solid gold and silver. Grandmothers and mothers would past down jewelry to their daughters as a way to teach them responsibility and so the girls can learn to take care of valuable things.

These traditions were important to the portuguese culture many years ago and they should still continue to be practiced throughout the world to keep alive the Portuguese culture that was brought to the United States by ancestors.