1933

Los Pulqueros

Pictured here are two makers of pulque, a tangy, fermented alcoholic beverage made from the sap of the maguey cactus. The spiny leaves of this large plant are sprawled behind the figures.

Periodically banned and the subject of numerous “morality campaigns” under Spanish colonial rule in the 1600s–1800s, pulque became an important symbol in the movement to define Mexican national identity in the 1920s and 1930s. Its ties to Mexico’s indigenous origins and popularity among workers and everyday Mexicans made the drink a favored subject of Mexico’s revolutionary muralists, including Orozco and his contemporary, Diego Rivera.