The Moths and Other Stories contains nine timeless masterpieces that explore the social, economic, and cultural impositions that shape women's lives. Prejudice and the social and economic status of Chicanos often form the backdrop for these haunting stories, but their central, unifying theme deals with the social and cultural values which shape women's lives and which they struggle against with varying degrees of success. The subject of a growing body of critical work, every year new readers have been introduced to the power of Viramontes' words.