Poised on the cusp of a centennial celebration, Point Loma\u2019s annual Festa do Espirito Santo \u2014 or Feast of the Holy Spirit \u2014 has weathered the test of time that has left mostly memories in a community built on faith, family and labor at sea. Long gone are the tuna boats that once filled the harbor and the Portuguese fishermen who emigrated here from the Azores to settle and build a community now inhabited by third-, fourth- and fifth-generation families. Mass spoken in Portuguese at Point Loma\u2019s St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church will soon be a thing of the past when the Rev. Joseph Mel Collier retires in June. As much as time as eroded the hallmarks of their culture, it has also strengthened the pride and spirit of a younger generation of Portuguese families who hold tight to the traditions of their parents and grandparents and are passing it on to their American-born children. The Festa, which began in San Diego in 1910, is a seven-week celebration between Easter and Pentecost Sunday to honor Queen Isabel, the Portuguese royal who served the poor and fed the hungry from her own table. Each Sunday, a weekly queen, typically attired in gown and an exquisite handmade cape and attended by equally quaffed royalty, is crowned at St. Agnes in honor of Isabel and the Holy Spirit. On the final Sunday, a colorful parade of costume and culture winds its way through the streets of Point Loma from the United Portuguese S.E.S. hall on Shelter Island to St. Agnes Church. There, the Festa Queen, whose parents are the event\u2019s sponsor for the year, is crowned during Mass. Afterward, a feast of “sopas,” a traditional Portuguese plate of food, is served amid festivities at the hall that are open to the public and carry on until 10:30 p.m. This year\u2019s parade and Festa will be held Sunday, May 31. On a recent Friday afternoon a group of families gathered at St. Agnes to practice for a weekly crowning. Patty Camacho is there with two of her four daughters \u2014Marlaena, a weekly queen, and Daniella, a lady in Marlaena\u2019s court \u2014 and her nephew, Matteo Camacho-Brier, who will be Marlaena\u2019s junior king. Teri Simas is there with her daughters, Nazare and Lizzy. Evelyn Feliciano is there with her daughter, Karinna, who was crowned queen the previous week in memory of Evelyn\u2019s husband Michael, who died in 2003 at age 40 of brain cancer. Evelyn met her husband at the Festa in 1984, and in 1985 she was Festa queen when her parents, Cristiano and Evelina DaRosa, sponsored the Festa. Feliciano, 42, has been in the Festa since the age of 3 and reminisces about her father, an immigrant who came to San Diego in 1954 with $50 in his pocket. “It\u2019s up to us parents to instill the value of tradition and heritage of San Diego\u2019s oldest ethnic tradition in our children,” Feliciano said. Ask their teenage daughters what the celebration means to them and you get a variety of answers from “It\u2019s fun” to “You get to be queen.” Nazare Simas, a weekly queen this year, said, “I want to honor my culture and show others what it\u2019s about for St. Isabel.” Being a weekly queen is a commitment that typically begins a year before the crowning. For Marlaena Camacho\u2019s crowning, it meant her grandmother, Stella Miller, started last year sewing the elaborate jeweled cape Marlaena wore for her crowing. It also comes with the honor of hosting the queen\u2019s crown in your home for a week. The weekly queen\u2019s family sets up an altar for the crown, laden with flowers and statues, and each night gathers with friends to say the Rosary and pray to the Holy Spirit. “When you\u2019re a kid, it seems so trying,” Patty Camacho said. “When you have kids of your own you appreciate it more. If you start them with your community and family traditions you always have something to remember.” The Camacho family is representative of hundreds of Portuguese families interconnected in Point Loma \u2014 some full Portuguese, some not. Patty Camacho, 43, is the daughter of Herbert and Stella Miller. Stella (nee Correia) came to San Diego with her family in the early 1950s from Pico, Azores. In 1971 Patty\u2019s sister, Michelle, was Festa queen when their aunt and uncle, Tony and Mary Alice Oliveira, sponsored the Festa. Patty is married to Victor Camacho, who came to San Diego from Portugal at the age of 12 with his parents Ernie and Bina Camacho. Bina is the choir director at St. Agnes and sponsored Marlaena\u2019s crowing. Victor and Patty\u2019s four daughters are all involved in the Portuguese community. Janessa, 21, is on committees at the Portuguese Hall and for the Festa. Samantha, 19, is a United Portuguese S.E.S. youth group advisor. Both Janessa and Samantha teach Catechism at St. Agnes and younger sisters Marlaena and Daniella are assistants. Scott Bier, 43, Matteo\u2019s dad, who is one-quarter Portuguese, calls himself a “mutt” but adds proudly that he was raised Portuguese. When he was younger, Scott hung the flags that go up on the streets around St. Agnes weeks before the parade. He and his wife, Andrea, who is Victor Camacho\u2019s sister, are helping organize the volunteers this year. “It\u2019s the greatest community,” Bier said. “As it ages, we need to really keep the youth involved.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poised on the cusp of a centennial celebration, Point Loma\u2019s annual Festa do Espirito Santo \u2014 or Feast of the Holy Spirit \u2014 has weathered the test of time that has left mostly memories in a community built on faith, family and labor at sea. Long gone are the tuna boats that once filled the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":272039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"2009 Portuguese Festa: 99 years of pageantry, family tradition on Point","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}