07/07/2025
📢 The Truth About “Fiestas” in Santa Barbara...
It’s time to stop celebrating colonization as culture.
Every year, Santa Barbara hosts “Old Spanish Days” Fiesta, a citywide celebration of the Spanish colonial era. But what’s marketed as a fun, family-friendly tradition is built on the erasure of genocide, slavery, and violence against Native and Mexican people.
📍This land is Chumash territory, and here’s the truth Fiesta hides:
🚫 During the mission era:
The Chumash were enslaved by Spanish missionaries. They were forced into labor - building missions, farming, cooking,under harsh and deadly conditions. Women and girls were routinely r***d by Spanish soldiers and priests. There are documented cases of sexual violence being used to dominate and “discipline” Native populations. Chumash families were torn apart. Children were taken from their parents to be indoctrinated and raised in Christian institutions. Resistance was met with brutality. Those who tried to escape or fight back were hunted, beaten, or killed. Over 50,000 Native Californians died during the mission period — many from disease, starvation, and violence directly caused by the mission system. Natives that were killed or died while doing slave work were buried under the missions or around it. They were not allowed to have a proper burial because they were seen as "savages"
🇲🇽 After colonization, Mexican and Indigenous communities continued to face displacement, racism, and economic oppression under U.S. control. The land and labor they once relied on were stolen.
🎭 Fiesta ignores this history. It glorifies the very system that r***d, enslaved, and murdered the original people of this land.
This isn’t just about “being offended” — it’s about demanding that we stop celebrating a lie.
Want to honor history? Learn the truth. Listen to Chumash voices. Reject whitewashed celebrations.