I have been pretty impressed with myself, a person who had not take a liking to books before this year, getting through texts like With His Pistol in His Hand and the Squatter and the Don. However, though I understand Bless Me, Ultima, I am struggling to piece together a bigger picture idea and connect it to the Latino/Chicano experience. This blog post along with discussion tomorrow will hopefully solve my confusion.

There are a couple key ideas in Bless Me, Ultima that seem to jump off the page; family division, religiosity, and the learning. The family division is seen in almost every chapter of the book, as the father of Antonio wants him to grow up and be a farmer and work on the llano, but Antonio’s mother wants him to become a priest and be a success in the family. This division leads to disagreement, anger, and even alcoholism. Antonio seems to gravitate towards his mother, believing that he is destined to become a priest and be a “man of learning.” Further family division is apparent when Antonio’s brothers return from the war, and their short stay is ended by their desire to move away from the llano and make their own future. The brothers sudden impulse to create their own paths could be another key theme in the book; intuition (but I digress).

Religion also is a very important part of this book. As the family is divided with the brothers moving away and the parents wanting different careers for Antonio, religion seeks to divide the family as well. Antonio’s mother is devoutly religious, who takes the time to pray for it seems almost everything. Whether it be the brothers returning, a frightful night occurring, or Antonio getting good grades, the family (excluding the father) seems to be gathered around the statue of the Virgin Mary ’round-the-clock. Another important note with religion in this book is that it is not the most powerful force, as most would claim it is, but rather it is Ultima’s magic that is godly. Apparent with Antonio’s uncle, the church turns him away when he is dying from a presumed curse by three evil witches. However, Ultima’s cure rids him of the evil and makes Antonio question the true power of the church. Now at war with himself, he does not know what to believe; whether to follow the word of God or follow the teachings of Ultima.

The last big idea of the book is teaching. From the day Antonio was born, he was taught the difference between right and wrong, what it means to be Catholic, and what his destiny should be. Tony’s life seemed to be figured out until Ultima came along, made him feel a spiritual connectedness towards her, and began learning the details of her cures and magic. Ultima, nearing death, is passing on her knowledge to Antonio, prepping him not to become a priest like his mother wants, but rather preparing him to become a healer, a curandero who can help others more than the Catholic church can. His teaching does not end with Ultima though, as Antonio is in awe of the power of reading and writing. Almost every time Tony is at school, he is starstruck by the magical figures on chalkboards or sheets of paper, wanting to decipher them. Antonio is definitely a “man of learning”, but I believe he will not learn the ways of Catholicism like his mother wants, but rather will learn and the mystical power of words and Ultima’s way of life.

This blog post served as a blank canvas for me to write down my thoughts, observations, and predictions. It really helped me understand the book more and allowed my mind to formulate more cohesive ideas. I’m looking forward to discussion tomorrow and seeing what others come up with. As for me, I believe that the 3 main themes in the book, Bless Me, Ultima are family division, religion, and teaching/learning.

-Curtis HR

When I first started reading this book one of the ideas that interested me was the idea of two distinct beliefs mixing together in a young boy’s life. In this book we find a young boy, Antonio trying to navigate the independence that is given to him to choose the path he wants to follow. Though his mother, the Luna side of the family has this hope of her son becoming a priest and creating a connection with the field and the surroundings and building a sense of community and family, Antonio also struggles with the option of following the identity that his father instilled in the other sons. The values of the Márez family, being a true hombre, an hombre of the llano with independence and freedom of mobility. Within Antonio he encounters two distinct lifestyles. He keeps on questioning his path and which to follow, we encounter a young boy maturing and growing. Thoughts and questions drive Antonio, his questioning and his curiosity sets a distinct tone to this book. One of the first questions that sets this kind of tone in the book is when Antonio asks his mother if Ultima was present at his birth. Through this question what Antonio really wants to understand and get an answer to is about his destiny of who he is to become. In his dream, Antonio sees his mother’s family and father’s family arguing over his future, and he believes that the woman who helped deliver him which seems to be Ultima, may be the only one who can help him know what lies ahead of him. With this sense of questioning to help fulfill his curiosity, we get a sense that this book is going to take us through the life of an innocent boy whose curiosity and willingness to know and learn leads him to another way of viewing his surroundings and life through his relationship with Ultima. I also want to briefly touch on one aspect that seemed to remind me to other texts that we have read so far in this semester, which is the concept of language. I have noticed how though this text is mostly written in English, the author has some sentences in Spanish. Young Antonio shares with us that he does not know how to speak English and he will learn it until he starts school. This shows the reader how language plays an important part in Antonio’s upbringing and identity.

When I first started reading this book one of the ideas that interested me was the idea of two distinct beliefs mixing together in a young boy’s life. In this book we find a young boy, Antonio trying to navigate the independence that is given to him to choose the path he wants to follow. Though his mother, the Luna side of the family has this hope of her son becoming a priest and creating a connection with the field and the surroundings and building a sense of community and family, Antonio also struggles with the option of following the identity that his father instilled in the other sons. The values of the Márez family, being a true hombre, an hombre of the llano with independence and freedom of mobility. Within Antonio he encounters two distinct lifestyles. He keeps on questioning his path and which to follow, we encounter a young boy maturing and growing. Thoughts and questions drive Antonio, his questioning and his curiosity sets a distinct tone to this book. One of the first questions that sets this kind of tone in the book is when Antonio asks his mother if Ultima was present at his birth. Through this question what Antonio really wants to understand and get an answer to is about his destiny of who he is to become. In his dream, Antonio sees his mother’s family and father’s family arguing over his future, and he believes that the woman who helped deliver him which seems to be Ultima, may be the only one who can help him know what lies ahead of him. With this sense of questioning to help fulfill his curiosity, we get a sense that this book is going to take us through the life of an innocent boy whose curiosity and willingness to know and learn leads him to another way of viewing his surroundings and life through his relationship with Ultima. I also want to briefly touch on one aspect that seemed to remind me to other texts that we have read so far in this semester, which is the concept of language. I have noticed how though this text is mostly written in English, the author has some sentences in Spanish. Young Antonio shares with us that he does not know how to speak English and he will learn it until he starts school. This shows the reader how language plays an important part in Antonio’s upbringing and identity.

Bless me Ultima is a coming-of-age book that does more than just describe Antonio’s transition from childhood to adulthood. The book depicts the evolution of the American society, or at least New Mexico society, by highlighting the contradictions between a traditional society and the construction of a modern society. However, before I get into that, I would just like to praise the style of the book. This is the first time since the beginning of the semester that I have enjoyed reading a book, not because of the story it narrates, but because of the style it uses. In particular, I would like to highlight the use of language that allows the legends described in the first part of the book and Antonio’s dreams to come alive. In addition, the author spends a lot of time describing the beautiful landscape of Mexico. Finally, this beautiful style is a very powerful element in giving substance to the human relationships depicted.

The book describes the contradiction of a society in transition. Historically, the book took place in the war and post-war periods, which correspond to the development of the ideology of modernization. The transition is portrayed as a passive and subtle revolution throughout the first part of the book. One of the main elements of this transition is the process by which the moral authority of parents and especially of the Father is challenged by children and young adults. Indeed, Antonio’s three brothers challenge their parents’ ambitions about their destinies. The parents’ confrontation about their children’s (male) destiny, namely between living as farmers in Puerto de Luna or as Vaqueros in California, is the symbol of the nuclear family in which the parents have the supreme authority to decide unilaterally about the children’s lives. It also represents a model in which social mobility is absent since the child has the duty to reproduce the lifestyle followed by the parents. However, this model is undermined by the refusal of the three brothers to follow the proposed life models and their desire to follow their own dream. Furthermore, the book establishes that Antonio will challenge this model in the same way. In fact, when he passed directly from the first grade to the third grade at school, he realises that he can make its own decisions and that responsibility implied by those decisions is an essential part of “growing up”. This disjuncture between the ambitions of parents and that of children is a symbol of a transition from a patriarchal society to a modern society in which the emancipation of young people is a central component. The book describes in part the causes of this transition. First of all, social institutions have a crucial role in raising the ambitions of young people. In particular, we can see how school represents a fundamental stage in Antonio’s life. On the other hand, the military is also an essential institution that increases the ambitions of Antonio’s brothers as well as their desire for mobility. A second cause that is subtly shown consists in the evolution of transportation, which allows children to no longer be tied to a specific place but to change their place of living, as in the case of Antonio’s brothers who dream of settling in Las Vegas.

It should be noted, however, that the destiny of the women seems to be of minor importance, since the fate of Antonio’s sisters is never addressed either by the parents or by the book, which only deals with the fate of the men. This shows that even if the patriarchal model is challenged in this modern society, the gender discrimination it implies is resilient.

I have to say that this one is definitely not a sad book (this is the last one I promise :P) However, I did think that it is quite creepy. There was a time that I decided to read it before bed and I decided to put it down because it mentioned La llorona and Lupito, after he was killed.

This book reminds me so much of the way the superstitions and “traditional” ways of people in the Philippines. I’m not sure if it is more of a cultural thing or entities as such are just more present in developing countries.

I remember a time when we went to the Philippines for a vacation and my mom was doing some gardening in the backyard. A few days after, she developed a blister on her foot that got worse as the days went by. My grandmother was so concerned and went on by saying “maybe you stepped on or offended something in the backyard.” In the Philippines, it’s a thing to say “tabi tabi po” when walking around in gardens. It is a way of excusing yourself from these “creatures” because they can see you and you can’t see them so they need to dodge you. My grandma asked my mom if she said “tabi tabi po” and my mom said she was careful. Now my mom is allergic to rubber and she said that it was probably just the old pair of flip-flops that she used when she did stuff in the backyard. My grandma advised my mom to go see a witch doctor because she can see that my mom was in so much pain. Out of desperation, y mom took my grandma’s advice and she said that upon entering the witch doctor’s place, the witch doctor asked about my mom’s foot right away when and they haven’t even told him what’s wrong yet. The witch doctor “prescribed” some herbs to my mom. Her blister didn’t disappear in one snap but it did go away eventually.

I really felt uneasy with the way that situation was handled but I definitely had some questions, like “how did the witch doctor know right away that my mom hurt her foot?” I know that stories as such do not make much sense in the first world context since we are surrounded by science and we need everything to be backed up by logical reasoning. Because of my mom’s story, I did not find the story of Antonio, although fictional, hard to believe.

There are specific scenes in “Bless me, Ultima” that reminded me very much of the three other books we have read in this class.  On the very first page of chapter ‘Uno’, Antonio is describing his family and their home, and this reminded me of Piri talking about his family and his home; of course, both these books are written in the first person.  “From the top of the stairs I had a vantage point into the heart of our home, my mother’s kitchen” (1).  Right after this, Antonio admits that from that viewpoint he was able to see the face of Chavez when he delivered the news of the death of the sheriff, which immediately made me think about Gregorio Cortez.  Also referring to Gregorio Cortez, one scene that reminded me of him was when Antonio spots Lupito, “the man who had killed the sheriff” (18), and sees him “crouched in the reeds and half submerged in the muddy waters” (18).  Antonio then describes to us that “the glint of light was from the pistol he held in his hand.” (18).  Immediately after reading this, I wondered a) why Lupito had killed the sheriff, and b) why is he not considered a hero, like in Paredes’s book?  On that same page, Antonio even says: “I knew that the sheriff had been greatly admired” (20).  Was the sheriff that Gregorio Cortez shot greatly admired?  And by who?  Later on, Antonio speaks about Lupito’s soul and says: “He had killed the sheriff and so he had died with a mortal sin on his soul.  He would go to hell.” (27).  It’s interesting to compare the killing of sheriff in this book, versus “With His Pistol in His Hand”; Gregorio Cortez killed a sheriff and became a hero, where as Lupito committed the same act, and is not a hero whatsoever in the eyes of the characters.  At church, one young girl even says: “He’ll go to hell.  It’s the law that he go to hell for what he did.” (37); and speaking about the law, the narrator says: “God was not always forgiving.  He made laws to follow and if you broke them you were punished.” (44).  Unlike the previous books we’ve read, here for the first time we see God as a “lawmaker”.

I also found it interesting to compare Piri to Antonio; for example, Antonio thinks: “Sometimes I felt like Jason, like I wanted to shout and cry, but I never did” (10), and in many ways this kind of emotional suppression reminds me of Piri.  To me, Antonio doesn’t seem like a “normal” six year old boy; most six year old boys would shout and cry if they felt like it.  Antonio seems very smart; there are multiple times in the book where he claims to understand the actions and motives behind certain behaviours.  For example, Antonio says that he was sure that his father was going to get up and shoot the owl with the old rifle he kept, but didn’t.  Antonio says that he “accepted his understanding” (13).  Antonio also recognizes what he doesn’t understand, which is also interesting to me; he seems to be extremely aware of what goes on around him, and of other people’s feelings as well.  For example:  “It was a cry that I did not understand, and I am sure the men on the bridge did not either” (19).  It’s impossible to imagine what it would be like to witness the death of a person at the age of 6, and Antonio seems to be quite effected by it, but again, he doesn’t seem to express these emotions and let them out.  He seems shocked; for example, he thinks: “the river’s brown waters would be stained with blood, forever and ever and ever” (24).  Here we see this child-like mentality.  We also see that Antonio questions the idea of right vs wrong; for example, he thinks to himself: “The men of the town had murdered Lupito. But he had murdered the sheriff. They said the war had made him crazy” (24).   Similar to Piri, Antonio knows he must become a man: “I knew I had to grow up and be a man, but oh it was so very hard” (59).  Actually, the topic of ‘becoming a man’ appears various times throughout this first half of the book.

I think that this text is one of the most interestingly written out of the texts we’ve read thus far. It seems to be written in a “wandering” manner, meaning, the book is an exploration of Antonio’s thoughts and in a manner that is not afraid to stray away from the topic at hand, instead venturing into a distant memory or thought then to be regrouped to the original topic. I think this strategy really helps to get in the mindset of Antonio and how his brain works, especially as a quizzical young boy.

What I also find interesting is the overwhelming distinction between the vaquero lifestyle that is favoured by Antonio’s father and the Luna family lifestyle that is favoured by his mother. This seems to be a deep-seeded conflict between his parents’ marriage, making Antonio essentially stuck between the two different lifestyles and cultures. It is clear that the two ways of living are quite different; while the vaquero lifestyle manifests in love for the llano and seems to value freedom, mobility and independence, the Luna family lifestyle wants to build towns and fences around the llano, valuing  family, stability and productivity. These concepts are brought up very early on in the novel, and also very early on in Antonio’s life, as he is only six years old. As such, it seems that his future is already hanging between two competing cultures, which each have unique expectations. Early on in the book, we read about Antonio’s dream of his birth. In this dream, he expresses his uneasiness around his future and whether he will become a vaquero or a priest. This reveals his overall anxiety that surrounds the culture conflict. We also see pressure coming from his parents; while his father talks about the llanos, his mother cries “if only he could become a priest…just think the honor it would bring our family to have a priest” to which his father replies “Be sensible!”, clearly demonstrating their conflicting views on the topic. Although Antonio does not seem to vocalize his anxiety of the situation to his parents, or even to us in the text, it comes out in his dreams (which seems to be a way to show Antonio’s interpretations and feelings towards the thoughts and experiences he has, and how that affects him as a character). Also, it is clear that Ultima is a guiding figure in Antonio’s life. So, her role may very well be to guide Antonio throughout this process of coming to terms with his heritages and embracing both of the cultures into his life.

Throughout this course we have learned about various essential concepts that are demonstrated in the books that we have read. One of them being community. In Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas and With His Pistol In His Hand by Americo Paredes, we see this word and its meaning exemplified throughout both texts. A community is formed by those who have a sense of connection and belonging with each other. It is created through a sense of fellowship and people having commonalities with one another.

The first text that I will analyze will be the one by Paredes. In his text Paredes takes a corrido dedicated to Gregorio Cortez a Mexican American who shot a sheriff and defended and fought for his right with his pistol in his hand. This corrido dedicated to this hero brings a sense of identity and connection to the people of the Rio Grande. This sense of being able to relate to a figure such as Gregorio Cortez, as he has suffered and witnessed injustices and ill-treatments due to his race is a way of forming a community. These people are able to use a corrido which is sung throughout history to bring them together and remember figures that are known for their strength and perseverance and with which they are able to identify with. These corridos and the idols that make them, create a sense of community where people can come together and remember figures that represent something for them.

In Down These Mean Streets, we encounter Piri Thomas, who is in search of his community. Piri is looking for a place where he belongs. After moving to various areas such as the Italian neighbourhood in New York, Long Island, and the South Piri starts finding comfort with himself and identifies the place where he feels at home the most, which is Spanish Harlem. Throughout his moves to different areas in New York and in the country and later on in jail, we find a Piri who is always longing for his return to the place where he feels at home and comfortable. For Piri, his community is this neighbourhood. As it is explained in the book, he feels a sense of comfort and identification with the people, sights, smells, and sounds of Spanish Harlem. For Piri, the search for his identity and belonging somehow always brings him back to this neighbourhood, the place where he grew up in and from then on has always played a role in who he is.