[4] She centers her works on the female experience as a child and adult in Puerto Rican communities in New York City, with much of writing containing semi-autobiographical content.
Her artistic talents and eagerness for learning flourished when she was a young student, but weren't always appreciated by her teachers, who saw her Puerto Rican heritage as a weakness.
Her most recent books are 1997's “A Matter of Pride and Other Stories,” published by Arte Público Press and Untitled Nicholasa Mohr in 1998.
Mohr published her first book Nilda in 1973, which traces the life of a teenage Puerto Rican girl who confronts prejudices during the World War II era in New York.
As Nilda grows up, she is mocked for her Puerto Rican accent by her teacher and classmate and is taught by her brothers to be quiet and know her place.
[4] In a 2016 interview with The New York Times, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda cited Nilda as the book that shaped him the most.
The girls, not fully understanding the ethnic tensions at play in the adults reactions, end up just laughing off the awkward experience.
Mohr's vivid writing about young characters while conveying deeper themes has made it well suited to being widely used in grade-school curricula.
[7] In the novella "Herman and Alice" Mohr describes the transition from the small town gossip and constraints in Puerto Rico to the much more anonymous experience of living in New York City.
[16] Each story features a different Puerto Rican American woman, describing their personal conflicts and their interpersonal relationships.
[17] The works are set in the era following the Great Migration of Puerto Ricans to New York and focuses on a period of economic hardship, racism, and sexism.
[16] The plot revolves around a wife Zoraida pleasuring herself each night in her Aunt Rosana's rocking chair and a husband Casto who disapproves.
This story emphasizes themes of learning the multiple paths to female sexual liberation within an oppressive environment.
Mohr's 1995 children's book The Song of el Coquí and Other Tales of Puerto Rico (written and published in both English and Spanish) discusses the ancestral traditions that make up Puerto Rican culture, and mixes the heritages of Latin Americans, Africans, Spaniards, as well as indigenous people.
In Nilda, a similar situation occurs where a character finds her knuckles smacked by a teacher when she speaks Spanish.
By exploring the lives and traditions of Latin Americans, Mohr encourages readers of all ages and ethnicities to widen their perceptions of Latinos.