Naming Against Erasure

Throughout colonial Mexico, indigenous and mixed-race identities were systematically erased or subsumed into Spanish categories. Sor Juana's very existence as a named intellectual—rather than an unnamed servant or silent woman—was an act of resistance. This concept examines how naming functions as a justice practice, especially when certain identities are rendered invisible by power structures. To name is to assert presence, to claim space in the historical record, and to resist erasure. Sor Juana named her own intellectual achievements in her writing; she refused to be unnamed or categorized solely by others. Across cultures, marginalized communities practice naming against erasure through documentation, testimony, genealogy, and storytelling. This is particularly urgent for indigenous peoples, diaspora communities, and those whose identities have been criminalized or pathologized. The act of naming—one's self, one's lineage, one's knowledge—is simultaneously an epistemological and political act that asserts the right to exist as a recognized being with a distinct identity and history.