A group of men sweeping the street

This etching was made during the Porfiriato period in Mexico. Artist José Guadalupe Posada symbolizes the various people of Mexico through their dress. There is a man wearing a bowler hat, a recent immigrant in white cotton, and a man in the short, tight, dark jacket typically worn by the rich. This unlikely grouping looks forced and perhaps even foreboding, with an officious man in the shadows on the far right. But perhaps the point of Posada’s odd arrangement is to encourage the audience to wrestle with the various classes' responsibilities for the greater good of the community.