“Vacationing with a Purpose”: Tourism Promotion on the Eve of World War II
Abstract
On the eve of World War II, Mexico’s reputation in the United States dramatically shifted from an unruly to a good neighbor. Although tourist promoters had tried for years, with some success, to counteract negative press about Mexico, they had difficulty winning the trust of many. However, by late 1940 Americans seemed to replace their distrust with goodwill toward Mexico. They dismissed earlier rumors about growing anti-Americanism south of the border following President Lázaro Cárdenas’s decision to nationalize foreign-owned oil companies, and overlooked unfounded reports about a brewing revolution in light of upcoming elections. Ordinary Americans began to embrace Mexico as “The Faraway Land Nearby”1 and to identity a vacation there with the larger, almost spiritual purpose, namely to foster good relations. In unprecedented numbers, U.S. tourists like Dorothy Reinke traveled south following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s advice to take part in the new Inter-American travel movement. Dorothy, a 28-year-old nurse from Oklahoma City, drove coast-to-coast through Mexico with her girlfriend. In 1941, Dorothy wrote to President Manuel Ávila Camacho and described her experience in Mexico as transforming for her, “a sister from the north.”
Keywords
Mexico City Good Neighbor Pearl Harbor Publicity Campaign National RailwayPreview
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Notes
- 3.See Seth Fein, “Everyday Forms of Transnational Collaboration: U.S. Film Propaganda in Cold War Mexico,” in Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.-Latin American Relations, ed. Gilbert M. Joseph et al. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 400–450.Google Scholar
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- Stephen R. Niblo, War, Diplomacy, and Development: The United States and Mexico, 1938–1954 (Wilmington: SR Books, 1995);Google Scholar
- Julio Moreno, Yankee Don’t Go Home! Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920–1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), Moreno’s study in particular illustrates the ways in which American corporations doing business in Mexico, like Sears, had to accommodate to Mexicans.Google Scholar
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- Michael Miller, Red, White, and Green: The Maturing of Mexicanidad, 1940–1946 (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1998), 67 and 71.Google Scholar
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