This book argues for the necessary and further examination of the sacred as it is ritualized within Chicana fiction. It suggests that religious, spiritual, linguistic and political symbolisms reveal rites that structure narrative performances of coping with and healing from trauma. Helane Androne examines these rites of spirit, service, and story as they occur in Ana Castillo's So Far From God, Denise Chavez's Face of An Angel, and Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo. Beginning with the implications of Gloria Anzaldua's spiritual vision of Chicana identity alongside structural principles of ritual criticism, this study extends the discourse about the impact of the sacred in Chicana fiction. an>