Portuguese culture draws festive crowd
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
The 22nd annual Portuguese Festa drew about half the crowd of previous years to Aloha Tower Marketplace yesterday, but vendors still sold out of hand-painted Portuguese roosters — and the malassada were going fast.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
"You can't come to a festa like this and not buy malassadas," said Gilbert Ferreira Sr., a Pearl City man who bought a dozen and a half of the doughnuts to take home to his grandchildren. "It's a must."
Comedian Frank De Lima entertained the crowd at the Portuguese Festa yesterday at the Aloha Tower Marketplace.
Walter Simao, one of the Kamehameha graduates from the Class of '64 who, along with the Class of '85, ran the malassada stand, described business as "better than steady."
"It's been a good afternoon, but we were hoping for a lot more tourist traffic," said Laura Figueira, one of the organizers of the festa. She estimated yesterday's attendance at 2,500. "Plans were made before Sept. 11, and we thought the Independence would be docking here today."
No cruise passengers were delivered to the Aloha Tower by the bankrupt cruise line, but Patricia Salgado-O'Hara, an Army wife from Virginia who moved to Hawai'i over the summer, was thrilled to discover the festa and rub shoulders with Hawai'i's large Portuguese population.
"It's so hard to find Portuguese products in Virginia," she said, examining a Portuguese toothpick holder. Salgado-O'Hara said that since moving to the Islands, her Irish husband had learned to love Portuguese sausage.
Two stands selling souvenirs from Portugal and the Azores quickly ran out of the best-selling items — brightly painted statuettes of roosters, the symbol of Portugal.
"You have to get here early in the morning to get those," Porter Turnbull, a North Shore man who ran one of the stands, told a disappointed shopper.
Paula Souza McHardy, another souvenir vendor, sold all her roosters but continued to hand out photocopies telling the story of the Portuguese symbol: how a cooked and well-seasoned dinner entree stood up and crowed to proclaim a condemned man's innocence.
Turnbull handed out prayer cards for Our Lady of Fatima.
"Here, take one," he said. "You never know."
Across from Turnbull's booth, Joao Correia, a 28-year-old retired bullfighter from the Azores, sat surrounded by a small but attentive crowd of women and showed snapshots of his victories and defeats in the bullring.
"On my island, bullfighting is a very big tradition," Correia said.
"Your mother must have been very worried for you," said Gaylien Mendes, a Big Island woman who examined the photos.
"It is a profession from which you retire early," Correia said. "It is very dangerous, and when you are young, you face the fear more easily."
Correia said that after he watched a fellow bullfighter die in the ring, he retired and went to work for the electric company. He has been vacationing since June, and his more recent photos show him surfing, riding dirt bikes and jumping barriers on horseback.
In addition to eating traditional foods, buying souvenirs and flirting with retired bullfighters, festagoers checked out the genealogy booth and were entertained by comic Frank De Lima, Local Diva Melveen Leed and by several dance and musical groups, including the Royal Hawaiian Band.
Josephine Cambra Mundo and 18 of her family members performed dances with traditional Portuguese footwork, but Mundo said several generations of life in Hawai'i left a mark on the performance.
"That little extra sway is from Hawai'i," she said.
Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535 2430.
