years and an additional two years to find a publisher. From 1965 to 1971, Anaya struggled to find his own "voice" as the literary models he knew and had studied at the University of New Mexico (BA English, 1963) did not fit him as a writer. He has also remarked on the unavailability of many authors at that time who could serve as mentors for his life experience as a Chicano. Anaya says that the great breakthrough in finding his voice as a writer occurred in an evening when he was writing late at night. He was struggling to find a way to get the novel to come together and then: This was the epiphany that Anaya believes came from his subconscious to provide him a mentor and his spiritual guide to the world of his Native American experience (115). In Anaya's first novel, his life becomes the model for expressing the complex process of growing up Chicano in the American Southwest. Michael Fink characterizes Anaya's work as "the search for a sense of place." And the author tells us, "Bless Me, Ultima takes place in a small town in eastern New Mexico and it is really the setting of my home town Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Many of the characters that appear are my childhood friends." The autobiographical relationship between Anaya and his first novel best begins through the author's own words as he reflects on his life's work as an artist and as a Chicano: Anaya's authenticity to speak about the Chicano worldview is grounded in the history of his family. He is a descendant from the Hispanos, who originally settled the land grant in Albuquerque called "La Merced de Atrisco" in the Rio Grande Valley (2). Anaya chooses Maria Luna de Márez as the name of Antonio's mother, which parallels his own mother's surname, and her cultural and geographical origins: Rafaelita Mares, the daughter of farmers from a small village near Santa Rosa called Puerto De Luna. In additional ways Anaya's family and that of his young protagonist parallel: Both Rafaelita's first and second husbands were vaqueros (cowboys) who preferred life riding horses, herding cattle and roaming the llano, as did Antonio's father, Gabriel. Anaya's family also included two older brothers who left to fight WWII and four sisters. Thus, Anaya grew up in a family constellation similar to that of his young protagonist. Anaya's life and