Practice: Nicaraguan Political Poster

Let’s analyze a couple of items from UCSD Library’s Latin American Political Campaign Ephemera Collection.

Below is an item entitled, “Butkam Yabia Taim Pain Luki Kaiks [Translation: Decide bien antes de votar”/”Think about your choice before you vote.“] Let’s apply the primary analysis tool to generate some information about this item! Remember to look at the object itself but also the bibliographic information available in its record.

Observe

What am I looking at? The bibliographic information in the item’s record tells me this is a political poster from Nicaragua. The main text of the poster reads, “Think about your choice before you vote.”
What do I notice first? I noticed that the poster is in a language I do not know. Since the national language of Nicaragua is Spanish, I assume this is written in an Indigenous language.
Who is the creator of the source? El Movimiento de Unidad Revolucionaria, from Nicaragua.
When was the source created? The bibliographic information states it was created between 1984 and 2009.
What is being documented? This is a poster that is telling people to think before voting.
What stands out to you about the source? The language of the poster stands out to me.

What can you say about the creator of the source? I was not familiar with El Movimiento de Unidad Revolucionaria, but a cursory web search led me to a brief Wikipedia article that tells me that MUR was a leftist political party in Nicaragua founded in 1988 by a former member of the FSLN. The Wikipedia article details the 1990 general election in Nicaragua, held on February 25, 1990, which means the poster was likely made around 1989.
Why do you think somebody made this? Who do you think the audience was for this source? I think MUR created this to encourage a specific group of people to vote in the 1990 general election. I did a web search for the text “Butkam Yabia Taim Pain Luki Kaiks” and found the UCSD digital item that I’m already looking at, as well as another digital item from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. However, the third and final web result came from a gallery in New York selling this poster. The listing reads: “Created by: Movimiento de Unidad Revolucionaria (Nicaragua) The Miskito are a Native American ethnic group in Central America, of whom many are mixed race. In the northern end of their territory, the people are primarily of African-Native American ancestry. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande, Nicaragua along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone.” The gallery also uses “Miskito” as one of its keywords.

Why was the MUR targeting its political campaign to the Miskito?
Who were El Movimiento de Unidad Revolucionaria and what was their campaign during the 1990 general election in Nicaragua?

This is a brief primary source analysis for this item. What other observations, reflections, and questions do you have?

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License