GUSTINE — Across the Portuguese corners of California, nearly every farming town with Azorean roots hosts a springtime Holy Ghost festa. But what happens in Gustine each September stands alone. This is the Festa of Our Lady of Miracles — Nossa Senhora dos Milagres — a devotion celebrated only in two places in the world: the mountainside village of Serreta on Terceira, and here on the rural West Side of California.
This year, the celebration marked its 90th anniversary, continuing an unbroken chain stretching from 1936 to 2026 and linking generations of immigrant families to a tiny volcanic parish in the middle of the Atlantic.
The devotion traces back to 1694, when the people of Serreta faced pirate raids, earthquakes and famine. Turning to the Virgin Mary for protection, villagers vowed an annual pilgrimage each September up the steep slopes of the Serra de Santa Bárbara. More than two centuries later, Azorean immigrants settled heavily in the dairies of the West Side. In 1933, dairyman Manuel B. Souza — remembered locally as Manuel São Miguel — traveled back to Terceira and witnessed the pilgrimage firsthand. He returned to Gustine convinced the community needed the same spiritual anchor…