A Mexican farmer working the land with horses and a donkey
After travelling through the ‘neat’ and ‘well-organized’ America, Van der Elsken noticed the tremendous difference with Mexico. While the corruption there irritated him (and cost him money), there was also a great deal that appealed to him. ‘Everything was fascinating, new...’ He could not escape generalizing, however: Mexicans are ‘very primary, fiercely reacting people,’ ‘the women run things’ and so forth. He remained an outsider who mainly saw contradictions.