Bless Me, Uitima

Bless Me, Ultima is a drama-based novel by Rudolfo Anaya. Bless Me, Ultima is a film about the social-psychological development of a Mexican-American, or Chicano, child growing up in the 1940s on the eastern plains of New Mexico. During the summer when Antonio is six years old, Ultima, a curandera, or folk healer, comes to live with the Márez family.

His mother's wish for him to become a priest in a farming hamlet where her family resides adds to his worry. Antonio, on the other hand, is anxious about satisfying his paternal lineage's wandering ambition. Antonio gains a deeper understanding of himself and the world around him, and he learns to accept the life and its various obstacles. The novel reflects Hispano culture of the 1940s in rural New Mexico.

Anaya's use of Spanish, the mystical depiction of the New Mexican landscape, use of cultural motifs such as La Llorona, and recounting of curandera folkways such as the gathering of medicinal herbs, gives readers a sense of the influence of indigenous cultural ways that are both authentic and distinct from the mainstream. The ways in which the novel provides insight into the religiosity of Chicano culture were first explored in 1982 in an essay titled "A Perspective for a Study of the Religious Dimensions in Chicano Experience.