Dec 8, 2009

Bless Me, Ultima | Introduction

First published in 1972, Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima has become the best-selling Chicano novel of all time. For twenty-two years, despite being available only through a small publisher, the novel sold 300,000 copies by word of mouth and was awarded the Premio Quinto Sol for excellence in Chicano literature. In 1994, the novel was finally printed by a major publisher in a mass-market edition to rave reviews.

Anaya drew from his experiences growing up in New Mexico during World War II to create the story of a young boy who must reconcile the many conflicting influences of his family, religion, and community. In the two years spanned by the novel, Antonio (Tony) Marez, who is six years old when the story begins, comes of age when he learns to recognize evil in the world and to navigate family expectations and religious ambiguity.

Critic Ray Gonzalez, in a review in Nation, states that “Bless Me, Ultima is our Latin American classic because of its dual impact—it clearly defines Chicano culture as founded on family, tradition and the power of myth. Through Antonio and Ultima, we learn how to identify these values in the midst of the dark clouds of change and maturity.”

Bless Me, Ultima Summary

Chapters Uno (One) through Cinco (Five): Before School Begins
Bless Me, Ultima opens with the curandera Ultima coming to live with Tony’s family outside the village of Guadalupe. At this point, Tony is six years old: he has not yet begun school, and is innocent of the world. This innocence is shattered early on, however, when Tony’s family learns that Lupito, a veteran returned from the war, has killed the town sheriff. Tony follows his father to the river, where the men of the village are gathering to confront Lupito, and watches as Lupito is shot and killed. This is the first of several deaths that Tony will witness.

The summer before Tony begins school, he spends a good deal of time with Ultima, who helps him to interpret his dreams and sort out his family’s conflicting messages. At the end of summer, the Marez family, except for Tony’s father, go to El Puerto to help his mother’s family with the harvest.

Chapters Seis (Six) through Nueve (Nine): Tony’s First Year of School
Tony goes to school in the fall, carrying the high hopes of his mother that he will become an educated man and ultimately a priest. Despite the fact that he is a quick learner and earns the respect of his teacher, Tony is an outcast because he is different— he is not a native English speaker, and rather than eating sandwiches for lunch like the other children, he eats tortillas, chiles, and beans. At school, he comes to understand “la tristesa de la vida,” or the sadness of life:

I wanted to run away, to hide, to run and never come back, never see anyone again. But I knew that if I did I would shame my family name, that my mother’s dream would crumble. I knew I had to grow up and be a man, but oh it was so very hard.

However, Tony makes friends with some boys from other classes who come from Spanish-speaking families, and they are able to help each other through the ordeal of school.

Tony’s three brothers return from World War II and start talking about opportunities outside of New Mexico, stirring up their father’s inborn desire to wander and shattering their mother’s dream of their becoming farmers and settling down. Two of the brothers, Leon and Eugene, soon leave town, telling Tony that he will have to be the one to fulfill his mother’s dream. Andrew stays, saying that he will finish school.

At the end of the school year, because he has progressed so quickly and because he is a little older than the other children in his grade, Tony is promoted from the first to the third grade. On the way home from school on the last day, his friend Samuel tells him... » Complete Bless Me, Ultima Summary