Through the concepts of social memory, identity, and lieux de memoire, this article analyzes how Chuquicamatinas, after their city was closed and community displaced, managed to reconstruct their identity and strengthen their memory in a place completely foreign to what they were used to. To do so, community members were asked their perceptions and opinions of this change and what it has meant to them. In their accounts, it is possible to see how, in periods of dispute and crisis, societies tend to become introspective and turn their attention to the essence of their identities. Questions about what happened and who they are raised a series of issues that they had ceased to be asked.