Last week was fried dough at the Tisbury Street Fair. This week it’s malasada, sopa and cacoila. Welcome to the Portuguese Holy Ghost Feast and Festival, a two-day extravaganza of eating, festivities and a parade through the streets of Oak Bluffs.

The one-story building stands at the corner of County Road and Vineyard avenue in Oak Bluffs. An American flag flaps in the breeze. Beneath it is the Portuguese flag.

There was plenty of reason to celebrate. It was the 25th anniversary of the Big Chili Contest, and spicy vats of chili were heating up inside the Portuguese American Club in Oak Bluffs on a frigid Saturday that found the Island dusted with sparkly snow for the third time in 10 days. And less than 24 hours earlier, radio station WMVY, sponsor of the popular contest that benefits the Red Stocking Fund, had reached a $600,000 fundraising goal that will keep the station alive for at least one more year.

Holy Ghost Feast Honors Heritage of Portuguese

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Two days of celebration begin tomorrow in the annual Feast of the Holy Ghost. Islanders of Portuguese heritage and their friends will party, dine and parade in a festival whose traditions date back more than half a century.

"This is our heritage," said Bobbie Ann Gibson of Oak Bluffs, president of the Holy Ghost Association.

The Club That Does What Needs Doing

By CHRIS BURRELL

Not a drop of Portuguese blood flows in Barbara Humber's veins. Her ancestry is Scottish and Irish, but hand her a pile of linguica, garlic and potatoes, and she can cook up a genuine batch of sopa.

Ms. Humber is just one of a growing number of Islanders who have not only joined the Portuguese-American Club in Oak Bluffs but now play pivotal roles in it despite a glaring deficit: They aren't Portuguese-Americans.

The reasons aren't really that complicated.