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Goldman 15

for realism, Siqueiros individualized the strikers, however his ideological program caused him to include in the forefront of the mass of strikers (male and female) portraits of Marx, Engels, and Ricardo Flores Magon, as well as other personalities who were obviously not present. The center of interest is the struggle between two men over the Mexican flag, making visual the political significance of the Cananea strike.
[[underline]]Flores Magon and Joe Hill[[/underline]]. There is no question that the Cananea strike had widespread support in the U.S. Mexican communities[[superscript]]32[[/superscript]] as well as by the Western Federation of Miners. The Flores Magon brothers, especially Ricardo who died in Leavenworth Prison for his political beliefs and actions, embodied the discontent over the abuses of the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship. The 1906 Liberal Plan of the Partido called not only for traditional freedoms but for new socially-oriented measure including the eight-hour workday and six day workweek, the abolition of company stores, the payment of workers in legal tender, and the prohibition of child labor - demands long on the agenda of the U.S. labor movement. As a matter of fact, the labor movement in Mexico was largely initiated by returning immigrants who had served the ways of organized labor in the United States.[[superscript]]33[[/superscript]]
Ricardo Flores Magon has been celebrated in art not only by Siqueiros, but by Diego Rivera, Leopoldo Mendez, Alberto Beltran, and many other Mexican artists. The Taller de Grafica Popular's portfolio [[underline]]450 anos de lucha: Homenaje al pueblo mexicano[[/underline]] includes Pablo O'Higgins' print [[underline]]The Strike of Cananea (Sonora)[[/underline]] and two prints by Fernando Castro Pacheco concerning the 1907 textile strike at Rio Blanco, Veracruz (which followed on the heels of Cananea) one of whose leaders, Lucrecia Toriz, is celebrated by Castro Pacheco. That the Flores Magons play in important symbolic role in the work of Chicano artists should not be surprising. In fact, for one artist, Carlos Cortez, Ricardo Flores Magon and Joe Hill reunite the ties of the early 20th century between the Partido Liberal and the IWW.