Cisneros's The House on Mango Street (1984) is a story about the coming-of-age of Esperanza, a Chicana growing up in an impoverished innercity neighborhood in Chicago.

Bless Me, Ultima (1972), by Rudolfo Anaya, is a classic of Chicano literature. It tells the story of a young Mexican American boy growing up in New Mexico and coming to terms with his dual cultural identity.

From Indians to Chicanos: The Dynamics of Mexican-American Culture (1998; 2d ed.), by James Diego Vigil, is a readable introduction to the Mexican American experience in the United States. Vigil covers each stage of Mexican American history, from pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial times to Mexican independence and nationalism to the modern Anglo American period. He analyzes the social and cultural dynamics that shaped contemporary Chicano life.

Growing Up Chicana/o (1995), edited by Tiffany Ana Lopez, contains twenty autobiographical essays and...