SOURCE: Review of Giving Up the Ghost, in Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 41, No. 1-2, 1987, p. 127.

In the following review, Paredes notes that Giving Up the Ghost "represents the most radical element of contemporary Chicana writing" because of Moraga's portrayal of sexual relationships and Roman Catholic culture in the Mexican-American community.

A self-described "Chicana lesbian," [Cherríe] Moraga earlier published Loving in the War Years, a collection of stories, poems, and essays notable for their passion and intelligence. In her latest work, a two-act play entitled Giving Up the Ghost, Moraga develops explicitly Chicano contexts and characters: the play is set in the East Los Angeles barrio and her characters speak authentically in the English-Spanish patois associated with the pachuco culture of urban teenagers. The two main characters, Marisa and Amalia, come to accept the superiority of homosexual love after Marisa endures a brutal rape...