Buying Zarapes in the Toluca Market

Bess Adams Garner (1887-), of Claremont, California, traveled "as many times as it has been possible" between her home and Mexico between 1932 and 1937, motivated in large part by her contact with "a group of Mexican young people" who participated in her local theater, Mexican Players of Padua Hills, performing plays, demonstrating folklore and in general educating the residents of Claremont, a small college town, in the "customs, songs & dances of their native land." Although she spoke little Spanish to start, she seems to have improved as she went along.

Garner's goal in writing her "notes" as part of a growing body of travel literature was not to provide information about Mexico's political or economic situation, but to extend "a new understanding and appreciation [to Americans] for the cultural roots of their Mexican neighbors." Her book is a series of one to three page vignettes that tell of a fiesta, or encounter, or anecdote, and Mrs. Garner, a mother of three, is not above chastizing the tourists who come to Mexico but refuse to leave their prejudices and preconceptions at home. Her tone is one of warmth. She herself suggests some comments might be "trivial, sometimes flippant...very often ignorant but always personal, and I hope always sympathetic." With no intent of producing an objective account, she nonetheless provides a solid one.

Bess Garner, like her husband Herman, was an alum of local Pomona College. She and her husband commissioned the construction of a house, today home to the Claremont Historical Society, that has also served as the site of the local Red Cross, the first senior citizens center in the city, and almost 20 years, home to the city's human services department

In her own words

"When I was a little girl I used to look through my grandfather's solemn books. The things that interested me were the little personal comments and pictures he had penciled in the margin.

That is exactly what this little book is--a few personal notes in the margin of the story of Mexico....They are no more complete than the little pictures and remarks I saw in my grandfather's serious books. They are fragmentary, often trivial, sometimes flippant, sometimes folklore-ical, very often ignorant, but always personal, and, I hope always sympathetic.