The Collected Works as Evidence of Self

Sor Juana's works—collected, preserved, published, and circulated—became a permanent record of her intellectual existence and authority. This concept recognizes that for people experiencing poverty and marginalization, documenting, collecting, and preserving one's own work becomes an act of resistance against erasure. Systems of poverty often depend on rendering people invisible, replaceable, and forgettable. Creating, collecting, and sharing one's work—whether intellectual, artistic, analytical, or testimonial—asserts presence and significance. Sor Juana's First Dream survives because it was written down and preserved; her brilliance would otherwise have been lost entirely. For contemporary individuals experiencing poverty, documentation practices—writing, recording, archiving, publishing—become ways of claiming space in history and culture. This concept also suggests the importance of institutional support for preservation: that marginalized people's work requires deliberate collection and protection from erasure, and that this preservation work is itself a form of justice and recognition.