Certain gestures survive the crossing of oceans without surrendering their essential form. The pega de caras is one of them: eight men, an unspoken covenant of trust, and the collective courage to advance at the very moment when every instinct might counsel retreat. On Sunday, September 6, at 5:00 p.m., the Stevinson Bullfight Arena will become the ceremonial heart of Portuguese California as the Grupo de Forcados Amadores de Turlock commemorates its fiftieth anniversary—half a century of valor, fraternity, and cultural endurance.
Founded in 1976, the group emerged from the enthusiasm of young Portuguese Americans, most of them connected by ancestry and affection to the island of Terceira. Their ambition extended beyond the creation of another bullfighting organization. They wished to preserve, on Californian soil, one of the most singular expressions of Portuguese tauromachy and to ensure that the art of the forcado would not disappear amid the distances and transformations of immigrant life.
The group’s first training session took place at the Pico dos Padres arena. Its founding is inseparably associated with cattle breeder Manuel C. Sousa and João Hermínio Ferreira, the group’s first cabo, or captain, and an important figure in Terceira’s bullfighting tradition. The Forcados Amadores de Turlock made their official debut on September 13, 1976.
João Hermínio, who died in 2024, possessed the experience of having also served as the founding captain of the Grupo de Forcados Amadores da Tertúlia Tauromáquica Terceirense, established in Angra do Heroísmo in 1973. In California, his knowledge encountered a generation prepared to convert nostalgia into continuity. Alongside Joaquim do Carmo, José Manuel Martins, Mateus Ramalhete, Mateus Martins, Eduardo Machado, Amaro Fernandes, and José Vitória, he helped initiate a history that would eventually transcend Turlock, California, and even the United States.
The Amadores de Turlock became the first forcado group founded beyond Portugal and are now recognized as the oldest such group in the Portuguese diaspora. This distinction is more than a matter of chronology. It represents one of the most remarkable examples of Portuguese cultural preservation abroad: a tradition inherited from the Azores, recreated in California’s Central Valley, and entrusted to successive generations who learned to inhabit two geographies without diminishing their allegiance to either.
Across five decades, the group has performed in the principal arenas and Portuguese festivals of California while carrying the name of Turlock to mainland Portugal, the Azores, Canada, Mexico, Spain, France, and Peru. In 2009, during an appearance at Lisbon’s celebrated Campo Pequeno, the group received the award for the finest pega of the evening, executed by Michael Lopes—an achievement that occupies a distinguished place in its history.
Leadership has passed through several captains. Following João Hermínio came Jorge “Vaca” Gabriel, Manuel “Kool” de Souza Jr., George Martins, Tony Machado, and Eddie Sousa. The group is presently led by George Martins Jr., son of former captain George Martins. This familial succession embodies the institution’s deeper meaning: what passes from one generation to another is not merely the traditional flowered jacket, but an inheritance of duty, discipline, and mutual trust.
The fiftieth-anniversary year has assumed a particularly resonant transatlantic dimension. The Amadores de Turlock returned to Portugal, performing at Abiul and, on August 6, at the Campo Pequeno in Lisbon. The group currently includes approximately thirty members between the ages of seventeen and fifty. Although most are Portuguese Americans of Azorean ancestry, the group also welcomes members of Mexican and other American backgrounds. Its composition demonstrates that a tradition may preserve the integrity of its origins while extending an invitation to the wider society in which it now lives.
The principal California celebration will take place this Sunday in Stevinson. The commemorative program brings together horsemen Alberto Conde, Joe Correia—who will bid farewell to the arena—Paulo J. Ferreira, Tiago Pamplona, Francisco Palha, João Pamplona, and Manuel Sousa.
Six bulls will be presented from the California ranches Pico dos Padres, Casa Agrícola Machado, São Pedro, Açoreana, Santo Antão, and Joe Alves & John Silveira. Under the leadership of George Martins Jr., the Amadores de Turlock will undertake all the evening’s pegas, carrying alone the honor and responsibility of the anniversary performance.
One of the bulls from Pico dos Padres will be presented in memory of Manuel C. Sousa, cattle breeder and cofounder of the group, and in honor of Savannah Sousa. The dedication gives the evening a deeply personal dimension. The arena will belong not only to those who enter it, but also to those who established the path and to the younger generations now entrusted with its continuation.
The gates of the Stevinson Bullfight Arena will open at 3:00 p.m. Advance tickets are $25, with admission priced at $30 on the day of the event.
Yet the history of the Forcados Amadores de Turlock cannot be adequately measured by the number of performances given, bulls faced, borders crossed, or honors received. Its truest measure resides in the friendships forged within and beyond the arena; in fathers who placed the flowered jacket upon the shoulders of their sons; in young men who discovered that courage without solidarity is merely bravado; and in a community that, thousands of miles from the Azores, continues to recognize itself in the rituals of its inheritance.
The forcado confronts the bull without weapons. His strength does not derive solely from physical prowess, but from composure, precision, and faith in those advancing immediately behind him. The first man receives the force of the encounter, but the pega can only be completed when the entire group becomes, for one decisive instant, a single body.
Perhaps that is the most eloquent metaphor offered by these fifty years. In the diaspora, as in the arena, no one preserves a culture alone. Someone must advance first, but others must follow. They must absorb the impact, sustain one another, and transform an individual act of courage into a collective victory.
This Sunday in Stevinson, eight men will once again walk toward the bull. Behind them will advance five decades of history: the memory of the founders, the villages and pastures of Terceira, the Portuguese experience in California, and the generations not yet born who may one day inherit the jacket.
For fifty years, the Forcados Amadores de Turlock have stood before the bull. More importantly, they have stood against oblivion—and they have not yielded.