| Abstract | The elucidation of collective memory takes place on continually shifting ground, leaving scholars of memory with few collective certainties of their own. One aspect appears constant: the emphasis on trauma as a way of framing memories of the past. The question of how to represent trauma is pivotal to the culture of memory in many Latin American countries. However, an exclusive focus on trauma can obscure the persistence of other memorial cultures. In Nicaragua, for example, a pantheon of revolutionary heroes still dominates the memorial landscape. Here, I examine the case of Leonel Rugama (1949–1970), a Nicaraguan revolutionary poet. Rugama's dying words, ¡que se rinda tu madre! (let your mother surrender!), are a central element in Nicaraguan collective memory. Comparing memorials to Rugama over three decades, I argue that the use of ¡que se rinda …! in the early 1980s is indicative of the iconoclastic power of a particular collective moment. In contrast, “¡que se rinda…” is absent from the 2010 memorial which marks the 40th anniversary of Leonel Rugama's death. This change reflects the present Sandinista regime's discomfort with the revolution's original radical intent, a discomfort amply justified by the recent re-appropriation of Rugama's final words by opponents of the current regime.
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