From my apartment in downtown Santa Barbara, I know Fiesta has arrived before I ever glance at the calendar. For one week every August, Santa Barbara becomes a stage upon which it performs its favorite story about itself. Since its founding in 1924, Old Spanish Days has presented Santa Barbara as the heir to a gracious Spanish colonial civilization. Anthropologist Patricia Ann Hardwick, a Santa Barbara native, argues that Old Spanish Days was deliberately created by civic leaders to accomplish two goals: stimulate tourism and cultivate a distinctive civic identity. But I also think about the many hands that built Santa Barbara and the many stories that remain only partially told.