World War II Soldiers of Color in James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone and Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima

Abstract

AbstractCritics have explored James Baldwin's Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (1968) and Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima (1972) through the emergence of their protagonists as artists, while other scholars have focused on Tell Me How Long's emphasis on black nationalism or Bless Me, Ultima's engagement with Mexican American identity; however, the tensions between art and social protest in both novels has not been explored by scholars in relation to the novels' treatment of the experience of soldiers of color in World War II. This article focuses on the novels' depiction of the military service by soldiers of color, their transformation by those experiences, and how the protests and activism against the racism and discrimination experienced by soldiers of color contributed to the long civil rights movement. I argue that through the war experiences of the protagonists' older brothers in Tell Me How Long and Bless Me, Ultima, both narratives similarly present the contributions and experiences of soldiers of color during the war effort as they faced the dilemma of fighting a war for their country only to be denied full citizenship rights at home, which increased their social activism. Tell Me How Long describes the heroic service of an African American in battle in the Italian front that has a historical antecedent in the 92nd Infantry Division known as the Buffalo Soldiers, while Bless Me, Ultima focuses on the effects of the mobilization period in Mexican American communities in the Southwest and the war's psychological effects on returning soldiers.