In her two major autobiographically inspired novels to date, The House on Mango Street (1984) and Caramelo (2002) Cisneros presents first, second, and third generation Chicana and native Mexican women who grow up in a patriarchal Chicano environment influenced by the cultural patterns and value systems of both the Mexican and the American cultures, which she herself experienced during her childhood. My main concern in this essay is to investigate the cross-cultural identity formation of selected women characters and I propose that in shaping their new cultural identity three distinct stages of transitions can be established in their representation. Accordingly, I offer a three-tiered classification of cultural identity types, the pilgrim, the tourist, and the mestiza, which is based on the extent to which the women characters integrate diverse cultural patterns and value systems in shaping their identity. The concepts of the pilgrim and the tourist will be used as introduced by Zygmunt Bauman, whereas for the mestiza identity I will rely on Gloria Anzaldúa’s understanding of cross-cultural identity. Additionally, I will also study in what way a traditional migration experience within the Chicanas/os’ ancient homeland, Aztlán affects the formation of the selected women characters cross-cultural identity.