Bless Me, Ultima

My favorite text this semester was Bless Me, Ultima. Bless Me, Ultima was an amazing book for so many reasons and I enjoyed reading about Tony and all his experiences that made him grow up and see the world in a different way. A big influence in Tony's life that helped him to mature and learn new things was Ultima. I loved this book so much because Tony, like all of us, had to go through different experiences in his life, sometimes difficult, in order to grow up and become a man. Some of these experiences are when he learns about the golden carp form Cico, and when he sees his friend Narciso get murdered.

When Tony learns about the golden carp, he thinks that what Cico has to say about it was unbelievable, but at the same time made a wild kind of sense. Cico told him that the golden carp warned us that if the city did not stop sinning, then it would be flooded. After this experience, Tony asks Ultima if the legend of the golden carp is real or not. I love Ultima's response when she says, "As you grow into manhood you must find your own truths" (125). I loved her response because so much of growing up is figuring things out on our own and making our own best judgment. Ultima could have easily told Tony what she though about the golden carp, but then that would have stopped Tony from thinking on his own about what he really felt about the golden carp. Ultima was trying to help him to be independent and to think for himself. If someone always is telling us what is right and what is not, then we will never learn.

Another experience that made Tony grow up was when he saw his friend Narciso get murdered by Tenorio. When he sees his friend get murdered and also when he saw Lupito get murdered, Tony has the burning question, why does God allow evil to exist? I like these experiences he has because it is really interesting to see the spiritual transformation that he has throughout the book. We all most go through difficult experiences in our lives that might make us question things, but it's through these experiences that we truly find ourselves and start to form our own ideas and opinions.

Bless Me, Ultima was an amazing book that really got me thinking about my own life and the reasons why I believe in and stand up for certain things.

The Love of God

"When I came on this trip, I thought my mom didn't love me anymore." (Patricia Riggen, Under the Same Moon)


In life, sometimes we feel that we are not wanted and not loved by anyone. Throughout the movie, Under the Same Moon, Carlitos sometimes feels that his mother does not love him because she has been gone for so long and he feels neglected. Towards the end of the movie, he comes to the realization that his mother does care about him and loves him dearly. This part in the movie, when Carlitos says that he thought his mother doesn't love him reminds me of how sometimes people don't feel that God loves them.

"And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true" (Mosiah 4:12). Sometimes in life when we sin, we feel lonely and that God does not love us. We feel that way because sin makes us feel horrible and that we are not good people. The reality is, God loves us no matter what and he always is extending his hand to help us out and feel better. Through repentance, we start to feel better and loved. Also learning more about God and passing through experiences that bring us closer to him (repentance) makes us feel and know that God loves us. Throughout the movie, Under the Same Moon, Carlitos realizes that his mom truly does love him no matter what. He realizes that she has been gone for so long and crossed the border for his benefit. She did this because she loves him and wants to help give him a better life. In our lives, sometimes if we pass through difficult situations and we suffer, God really wants us to overcome these hard times and become stronger as a result.

Just like how Carlitos' mom does stuff for him because she loves him, God does stuff for us because he loves us. Carlitos mom loves him no matter what he does and God loves us no matter what too.

Opposition in all Things

"God is supposed to know everything, all right, then why didn't he make this earth without bad or evil things in it? Why didn't he make us so that we would always be kind to each other? He could of made it so that it was always summer, and there's always apples in the trees." (Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima, 207)

In Bless Me, Ultima, Florence and Tony have a discussion about why bad things happen in the world. Florence had a really tough life and doesn't believe in God as a result of his mother's death, his father's death caused from alcohol, and his sisters being whores. Florence wonders what he did to deserve all these bad things. Florence has many questions of the soul that many people wonder about. When Florence wonders why God didn't make this world without bad and evil, he reminded me of 2 Nephi 2:11; 16 when Lehi teaches his son Jacob about how there needs to be an opposition in all things.

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad...Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other" (2 Nephi 2: 11; 16). Unbeknown to Florence, God sent us to this earth to get a body and pass through experiences that will help us grow and become more like Him. If there was no opposition, we would not be able to change, we would not know joy because we would not experience sorrow and pain and we would be forced to have only one choice, which choice would be Satan's plan. Since God knows everything, he knew that it would be best for us to have our agency so that we could choose for ourselves. Through making our own righteous choices, we become disciples and we show God that we are loyal and that we love Him.

God loves us so much that he sent us to earth to learn and grow. As stated previously, opposition is necessary in all aspects of life and as soon as we realize this and apply it into our lives, we will understand why we are put into certain situations and how we can use our agency to change ourselves or our situations for the better.

The Sins of the People

"I thought about telling everyone in town to stop their sinning, or drown and die. But they would not believe me. How could I preach to the whole town, I was only a boy. They would not listen." (Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me Ultima, 124)

In Bless Me Ultima, Tony is worried because of the golden carp's warning that the city will be flooded if the people continue to sin. Tony desires to tell the people that they should stop sinning, but feels as if they would not listen if he were to warn them because of his young age. Tony goes to seek comfort from Ultima in regards to the carp's warning, but is told that he must decide on his own if the story of the carp's warning is actually true or not. Tony's desire to tell everyone to stop sinning reminds me of Lehi in The Book of Mormon and how he warned the people of Jerusalem that it would be destroyed as a result of the peoples' iniquities.

In The Book of Mormon, Lehi has a vision that the city of Jerusalem shall be destroyed because of the people and their abominations. The people mock Lehi and they become angry with him because of his words that the city will be destroyed because of their sins. In Bless Me Ultima, Tony believes that according to the golden carp, if the people continue in sin, the city shall be destroyed. Knowing that Tony didn't warn anybody in the town to stop sinning made me think of Lehi and what would have happened if he didn't heed unto the Lord's counsel to leave Jerusalem. If Lehi and his family didn't leave Jerusalem, they probably would have been killed or taken captive to Babylon. I believe that his decision to stay would have greatly altered history for the worse. It probably would have taken many years for someone else to get the plates of brass from Laban and The Book of Mormon would definitely have different people in it other than Nephi and Lehi.

I am very grateful for Lehi's decision to leave Jerusalem as a result of the Lord telling him to leave. We have The Book of Mormon in big part because of him and Nephi. I am not sure how Tony's decision not to warn the city of their possible destruction will play out, but I really hope that he and his family will be safe in the end.

Receiving Spirits

"She received the spirit." (Black Orpheus)

In the movie, Black Orpheus, there are some instances that lead you to believe that the devil does indeed have power to imitate miracles. Towards the end of the movie, Orpheus is frantically looking for his love, Eurydice, who he unknowingly killed. While looking for her, he runs into a group of people dancing in a circle. All of a sudden, one of the ladies starts going crazy and flailing her arms around. A man who was watching the dance with Orpheus said that the woman received the spirit. Watching this scene reminded me of my experiences in Brazil and how I heard many stories of people speaking in tongues and going crazy as a result of receiving the spirit.

In Matthew 7:16 it reads, "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles"? With every miracle, we can know if it was a miracle from God or from the devil by the way it makes us feel. Miracles that are done in the name of God bring peace to our hearts and clarity to our minds. True miracles bring the spirit, and some of the fruits of the spirit are, "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith." (Galatians 5:22) In Black Orpheus, I do believe that the woman that went crazy was overcome with something, but it was not the Holy Spirit. I believe that she was overcome by a demon that took over her body and made her do all sorts of crazy things. I believe that because when I saw that scene, I did not feel any fruits of the spirit as I mentioned before. Some of the feelings that I had were fear, uneasiness, and contention. These are not feelings that come from the spirit. During my time in Brazil, I saw and heard of instances that occurred in this movie of people receiving spirits, and I could always discern if the spirit came from God or from some other power by the way the instance made me feel. Watching this scene and thinking of my experiences also made me want to always strive to stand in holy places and do righteous activities so that the devil and his followers will have less influence over me and my body.

The devil does have power and it is important for people to use their discernment so they will not be tricked by instances when people supposedly receive "the spirit." This world can be very dangerous and we must be very careful.

Extermination of Races

"M. Blancheland was in favor of the complete, absolute extermination of the slaves, as well as of the free Negroes and mulattoes. Anyone with African blood in his veins, quadroon, octoroon, sacatra, griffe––whatever the degree––should be put to death." (Alejo Carpentier, The Kingdom of This World, 72)

Over the years, there have been people that believe that certain races are inferior to others or cause some type of threat to society. As a result, many people from these races have been brutally murdered. In the book, The Kingdom of This World, M. Blancheland was in favor of exterminating the slaves or anyone with African blood in them. He felt this way because of an uprising of the slaves and because he thought that their voodoo and secret religion posed a threat. After reading about how M. Blancheland wanted to exterminate anyone with African blood, it immediately made me think of Adolf Hitler and how he wanted to obliterate the Jewish race.

Adolf Hitler's ideology of the Aryan race was one of the things that led him to believe that the Jewish people, as well as other groups of people, needed to be eliminated. These people needed to be exterminated in order for Lebensraum (living space) to be provided for the Aryan race. In Hitler's opinion, the Jewish people were the great enemy of the German people. In comparison, in The Kingdom of This World, M. Blancheland believed that the slaves, as well as anyone with African blood, needed to be eliminated in order for peace to be restored. It is so sickening to imagine a person who thinks that the only way to have peace for their people is through the extermination of another people. Both Adolf Hitler and M. Blancheland had very radical ideas of what was needed to restore order in their respective communities. I also believe that these men had such crazy ideas because they had too much power. It seems that when a person is given too much power, more often than not, they become corrupt and end up doing unthinkable things. These two men were responsible for horrific things as a result of their crazy ideas.

I think it is extremely unfortunate that people such as Hitler and Blancheland thought of exterminating a  group of people. It is so selfish to think that the only way to make yourself and your group of people happy is through the killing of others. People have done unthinkable things throughout history as a result of the desire for what they think is the perfect world.

The Decisions of Others

 (Emilio Fernández, Maria Candelaria)

In life, it is very easy to be affected by other people and their bad decisions that they make. Many people say that if another person does something bad, you should not let that affect you, but that is easier said then done. In the movie, Maria Candelaria, Maria is looked down upon in her community because of her mother who was a prostitute. As a result of her mother, people thought of Maria as a whore and did not like her for that. Unfortunately for Maria, even though she was a really good person, she was not liked because of the bad reputation of her mother. This aspect of the movie reminds me of Adam and Eve and how we are all affected by their decision to eat the forbidden fruit.

As a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve, physical and spiritual death entered the world. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they talked face to face with God. After the Fall, they were no longer in His presence. Physical death entered the world, meaning because of Adam and Eve, we will all die one day. Though we inherited the effects of the Fall, we are still responsible for our own actions and sins that we commit and not for the transgression of Adam. In the movie, Maria Candelaria, she was also affected by the actions of her mother. Though she was affected by these actions, she still made a choice to be a good person and try to do what was right. Unfortunately for Maria, she was involved in a big painting fiasco that ended up making her seem like she was a risqué woman. As result of the misunderstanding, the townspeople stoned Maria to death because of what they thought she had done. Sometimes in our lives, no matter how good we try to be, we could still be affected by the past actions of someone else.

The story of Maria Candelaria really makes me want to be a good person that makes wise decisions so that my descendants will not have to be affected by the things that I have done. As Dr. Seuss once said, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not." In order to be a transitional character in your generational line, you have to make a conscious effort to be the change in your family. Doing so will reduce the risk of tragedies such as Maria Candelaria's.