Morales's first English novel The Brick People (1989) makes use of magical realism as well as historical facts to tell the story of Mexican Americans in California from 1892 to the 1940s. The focus of the novel is on the brick factory owned by wealthy white Americans and the Mexican immigrants who work there.

Cuentos Chicanos (1984), a revised edition edited by Rudolfo A. Anaya and Antonio Márquez, contains twenty-one stories that cover the full range of Chicano literature including stories derived from oral tradition and complex narratives. The anthology includes established writers, such as Anaya and Sergio Elizondo, as well as emerging new writers.

Mexican Americans, American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos (1993) by Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Ribera covers Mexican American history from the time of the Spanish conquest to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and recent...