The Name as Political Act

"Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz" itself was a constructed identity—she was born Juana Ramírez, and her religious name represented both acceptance of and resistance to institutional power. Her full name came to represent not submission but intellectual authority; her identity became inseparable from her work and ideas. This concept treats the name as a political act: what you call yourself, what others call you, and how you negotiate these differences are all sites of power and self-determination. In multicultural contexts, this becomes especially significant: names carry ethnic, religious, and linguistic histories that mark or erase cultural belonging. Whether reclaiming indigenous names, navigating transliteration across languages, or choosing new names that reflect evolving identity, the act of naming becomes an assertion of agency. Sor Juana's example shows that a name can be simultaneously imposed and owned, constrained and weaponized for intellectual authority.