by Luis Lira

Imagine you are a five-year-old boy living in a New Mexico farming village during World War II and you hear a witch is coming to live with you. For Antonio (Tony) Marez Luna this is a reality and his first encounter with Ultima sets off events that will stay with him his whole life. Bless Me Ultima shows us a family’s transition from practicing traditional Mexican values to becoming a modern Mexican-American family. For people in Tony’s village, Ultima and her rituals represent the past and even though they seek her, they also are embarrassed for choosing her over a doctor. Throughout the film we see other transitions, such as Tony being embarrassed during lunch due to the fact he has a burrito and the rest of the children (who are Mexican- American also) have sandwiches and other American food. Lucky for Tony when he runs outside of the classroom due to embarrassment, he sees other kids eating their traditional Mexican food on the school steps. Tony sees his whole world changing before his eyes and finds comfort in Ultima, who he realizes is a healer and not a witch. I was able to compare this story to my own family’s story during the same era and found the film is very accurate with the challenges facing Mexican-American farming families of that particular time. In addition, I was also pleased the film showed the difference between curanderas (healers) and brujas (witches). Even if one doesn’t believe in such practices, those practices were part of everyday rural Mexican-American culture. The film is based on a novel by the same name written by Rudolfo Anaya.