Drivers who pull onto the small road leading them to the New England Rodeo in Norton might well feel like they’ve arrived on a different planet.
Located about an hour from Boston, the parking lot is a sea of cowboy hats, boots and pickup trucks. And as Kelly Pina, who helps with the behind-the-scenes paperwork for the rodeo, jokes, it’s New England’s best-kept secret.
“‘Cause nobody ever pictures a rodeo being in Massachusetts,” she said.
The event is the only weekly event in the commonwealth to feature bull riding and barrel racing, making it a lifeline for rodeo culture that’s far from home. That’s especially important for Brazilians, who make up the vast majority of the bull riders at the rodeo. It makes for a swirl of English and Portuguese, Americans and Brazilians all coming together for a sport and lifestyle they love.
Jullia Oliveira manages the rodeo’s bull riding — and she also speaks fluent Portuguese, a crucial skill given the high number of Brazilian bull riders in the sport.
“It’s just, up in Brazil, especially in the countryside, it’s what they do,” she said.
And since Massachusetts has one of the largest Brazilian communities in the country, Norton’s rodeo is a natural hub. The owner, Elias DaSilva, hails from Brazil, too.
“It’s nice to have a place where they can come and feel comfortable and feel welcomed,” Oliveira said. “Especially since they’re coming from another country, usually without being able to speak English.“
Saturday’s rodeo — the last of the season — drew in a crowd of over 1,000 spectators that lined the arena in bleachers and chairs.
As welcoming as the rodeo may be, the back of a bull is no place for the timid. As soon as the gate to the pen opens, it’s man versus nature. And for a few electrifying seconds, the riders are locked in a mesmerizing dance that shakes the earth beneath them as supporters scream and holler.
But gravity and thrashing bulls have a way of getting the cowboys to hit the ground. As terrifying as it looks, they all dust themselves off and hop back up. Some even do so with a smile.
Wesley Goncalves, Oliveira’s uncle, has been riding bulls most of his life. He says bull riding and soccer are the big sports in his home country of Brazil, so having the rodeo in Norton has been very important to him.
“You have a lot of Brazilians here. The community, Brazilians, in Massachusetts, is big. But [a] lot of farm people here enjoy this a lot,” he said.
Walter Oliveira, Jullia’s father, is a bull rider as well. And having a local rodeo has been a game changer.
“We used to travel like six hours, seven hours, eight or more, sometimes sixteen hours, to go for a ride,” he said. “And to have the New England Rodeo here, for us is great. For me, it’s one hour from my house.”
Today’s established New England Rodeo is a long way from its humble beginnings. Tim Lee, one of the rodeo’s announcers, used to be a bullfighter — the type that helps wrangle a bull after it’s thrown a rider, not the matador-with-a-cape kind.
“Sometimes rodeo can be like a dying breed, but we’re never gonna let it die,” Lee said. “There’s just nothing like rodeo, man. You bring so many people together like that, how could you have a bad time?”
For Pina, the rodeo is a personal affair. Along with helping to run it, she’s a professional barrel racer, zooming through the dirt of the arena and weaving through barrels on horseback. And her husband, Ed Pina, is the other half of the rodeo’s announcing duo.
He believes one of the best things about the rodeo is the bonds it creates.
“You come here a few times, [then] you’re family. You work with us, you’re blood, no matter what,” he said. “It’s about building our family bigger and teaching the next generation how to do our sport and to make sure our sport keeps going.”
