The collection reflects Cisneros's experience of being surrounded by American influences while still being familially bound to her Mexican heritage as she grew up north of the Mexico-US border.

[1] Not properly belonging to either Mexico or the United States, the Chicana protagonists earnestly search for their identity, only to discover abuse and shattered dreams.

Despite such limited space, Cisneros experiments with daring poetic prose in her storytelling; for example, each story presents a new character with a distinct literary voice and style.

[4] Despite the abundance of sibling playmates, Cisneros always felt lonely as a child, thus prompting her to begin creating stories to vary her daily routine.

[4] After many years of writing, Cisneros used Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories to explore the failed relationships of the female characters via their reactions to the men in their lives.

[5] This feminine focus in the stories may reflect Cisneros's own views on relationships, as she does not appear to have a strong connection to any male figures in her life: "For her, men seem to be a utility that a woman turns on and off as required.

[7] Cisneros "creates stories, not explanations or analyses or arguments", which describe her feminist views with "more provisional, personal, emotional, and intuitive forms of narrative".

[8] In the myth, "a beautiful young woman named Maria falls in love and marries a handsome, rich boy, and their union is blessed with two sons and a daughter".

However, the story focuses on the freedom that the girls have when no one of authority is watching; for example, waving at strangers, jumping on mattresses, scratching mosquito bites, picking scabs, and somersaulting in dresses.

[13] The book's second segment, "One Holy Night", contains two short narratives focusing on adolescent females and the way their self-worth is affected by the tension of remaining loyal to Mexico while integrating into the American lifestyle.

[14] The title story "One Holy Night" introduces the reader to a young teenage girl, Ixchel, who, in her quest for true love, meets a 37-year-old man named Chato.

In her youth and naivety, Ixchel desires to be romanced by someone with alleged Mexican roots, only to be disappointed by the reality of having fallen in love with a Mexican-American serial killer.

She struggles with being constantly abandoned by her lover, who is off "revolutionizing the country", and she describes her efforts to raise a family on her own despite hardships such as famine, disease, and poverty.

[20] Ixchel, the self-named protagonist of "One Holy Night", is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives in Chicago with her uncle and grandmother who immigrated from Mexico.

[22] Chaq Uxmal Paloquín is another self-named character in the story "One Holy Night", nicknamed Boy Baby, but whose real name is Chato, which means fat-face.

In this story he has grown up and is now a 37-year-old serial killer who seduces and then abandons the young, naïve protagonist by romanticizing her with a lie about being from an ancient line of Mayan kings.

[24] She is frustrated with the power of the male patriarchy that pushes her to be not only Zapata's lover, but also the mother to two of his children and his "political sister" in their shared fight for freedom.

[27] Clemencia is the Chicana protagonist of "Never Marry a Mexican", whose life choices can be related to those of the historical figure La Malinche, an indigenous woman who befriended the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century.

[30] There are many themes found in this book; some that are recurring are roles in society, religion, relationships, and also the hybrid nature of American and Mexican identities.

Critic Mary Reichart observes that in Cisneros's previous work as well as "in Woman Hollering Creek (1991), the female characters break out of the molds assigned to them by the culture in search of new roles and new kinds of relationships.

[32] Another example of this is found in the final section of this book, entitled "There Was A Man, There Was A Woman", where Cisneros illustrates how women can use their bodies as political instruments in their attempts to fight against male domination.

[10] For example, Inés, in "Eyes of Zapata", talks about the role she plays as lover, not a wife: "You married her, that woman from Villa de Ayala, true.

"[33] The protagonists are examined not only as individuals, but also by how they connect to people in their lives, such as in the conflicting love and failed relationships between man and woman; mother and daughter.

Instead, she attempts to find neutral ground where the characters can try to meld their Mexican heritage with an American lifestyle, without feeling homesick for a country which, in some cases, the women have not even experienced.

Cisneros used this style in her previous novel The House on Mango Street where she mastered writing from the point of view of Esperanza; however, "moving on meant experimenting with many voices".

[45] For critic Ilan Stavans, the stories are not just words, but "a mosaic of voices of Mexican-Americans who joke, love, hate and comment on fame and sexuality...

"[11] The American Library Journal and The New York Times honoured Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories as a noteworthy book of the year.

[46] The New York Times reviewer Bebe Moore Campbell wrote in 1991 that "[these] stories about women struggling to take control of their lives traverse geographical, historical and emotional borders and invite us into the souls of characters as unforgettable as the first kiss".