I struggle with reading. In fact, I have in the past said that I hate reading, but that is simply because I struggle with it. I can zip through a ‘good’ book without batting an eyelash, and I flip the pages of a ‘not-so-good’ book as if I were shovelling heavy snow. This is how I felt when I started Bless Me Ultima. To start with, I found the Introduction, which the author Rudolfo Anaya provides as really arrogant, reminiscent of the likes of Alice Munro or Margaret Atwood—two Canadian authors who think very highly of themselves. Why tell me how great your book is before I read it? This takes away my agency as a reader to figure out whether or not I like it before I even start…never mind the audacity of including discussion questions at the end of it for me to ponder. It makes me think the writer has little faith in his reader. Alice Munro, the Canadian author I mentioned previously, says in an essay called “What is Real?” that authors are often asked “very naïve questions…by people who really don’t understand the difference between autobiography and fiction, who can’t recognize the device of the first-person narrator”. Yuck. Anaya’s Introduction made me think he has the same lack of faith in his readers that Munro does. Let me, the reader—your reader—decide for myself whether or not your book is good. My imagination is well sufficient.

So this is how I felt starting the book.

It wasn’t until chapter Tres when I started to relate to the narrator and forget about the arrogance I had interpreted at the onset. It was when the narrator said that he would be forced to speak only English when he started school, according to his sister, it dawned on me that this was a little boy speaking his story. I began to turn the pages with a little more ease.

It was one of our midterm topics—language, and here it comes up again in this novel…‘the classic novel’, per the cover. Language plays such a formidable role in sociocultural aspects of our lives. I began to understand that the narrator was a Spanish-speaking little boy in New Mexico, whose only language is Spanish, conveying his thoughts in English from the mind of an adult.

I also began to think of something I read about Down These Mean Streets while preparing for our impending wikipedia assignment. Schools used to insist that English be the only language spoken. Kids, who came from families which didn’t speak English at home, struggled. They were evaluated in comparison (or contrast) with the other students who did speak English at home and already had achieved some sort of fluidity with English. This caused the impression of stupidity and laziness in students, simply because English was not their first language. These stereotypes developed with them into adulthood. This caused tension for the students who struggled to express themselves in a foreign language…despite being so close to their home.

So from this, I started to get into the book a little more, and I have almost forgotten how I felt when I started.

I’m including a song this week that I often share with students I tutor…a Spanish version of The Beatles’ song ‘Amarillo Submarino Es’ by Los Mustang (I believe they were from Barcelona). Songs, poems, thoughts can be translated from one language to the next, often with little tweeks of change that don’t have a significant impact on the overall meaning or mood to capture something similar to the original language in which it was written or thought. I was reminded of this version of the song when I realised that the narrator was thinking in Spanish despite the words being in English; the melody remains the same and I understood him.