SCHOLAR AND POET MEXICO. . . for there seemed to me no cause for a head to be adorned with hair and naked of learning . . .
—SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ
Fifteen-year-old Juana nervously clamped her hands together as she looked around the room filled with forty of the most intelligent, educated men in Mexico City. She felt like she’d been answering their questions forever. But still, they weren’t finished with the exam. The men continued calmly interrogating her, one after another—they asked questions about philosophy, math, history, poetry, religion, and anything else they could think of. For hours she answered their questions. Would she be able to prove her extraordinary intelligence so they would allow her to continue her studies?
Over several hours, she astounded them with her brilliant answers. The stories about her were true after all. Juana’s success at the exam was just the beginning of her accomplishments. She later became one of Mexico’s foremost intellectuals and also one of its greatest poets!
Although Juana was a better reader than her mother, she kept it a secret. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings, and she also hadn’t gotten permission to go to classes!
On November 12, 1651, Juana Ramirez de Asbaje was born in a small hacienda (ranch house) in a Mexican village. At the age of three, Juana began following her sister to school, and she quickly learned to read. She was soon able to read better than her mother. Juana’s amazing intellect could not be held back, and she studied anything she could get her hands on, including math, philosophy, religion, literature, history, and the Aztec language. Amazingly, she also learned Latin, a very difficult language, on her own after taking just a few lessons.
When she was seven, Juana heard about the university in Mexico City. Unfortunately, like most other schools at the time, the university accepted only male students. Still, Juana begged her mother to let her dress like a boy so she could attend the school in disguise. Her mother refused, so Juana continued to study on her own from the books in her grandfather’s library. She began writing around this time, too, and composed a poem for a religious festival in a nearby town.
When she was nearly ten, Juana moved to Mexico City to live with relatives. Word of her genius spread, and after a few years she was invited to stay with the viceroy (ruler) of Mexico and his wife at their palace. There she continued her studies, entertaining the court with her poetry, songs, and plays. Juana’s intellect and abilities became widely respected. When she was fifteen, she faced the extensive oral examination from Mexico’s leading intellectuals. She passed with flying colors.
Juana was extremely dedicated to her intellectual progress. She even refused to eat cheese because she had heard that it made people stupid (which isn’t true, by the way).
Juana passionately desired to continue learning, but she knew that, as a girl in Mexico during the 1600s, her role was to be a wife and mother. The only way she could be a scholar was to become a nun. She entered a convent in 1669 and became Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz.
In her lifetime, Sor Juana put together a library that contained 4,000 books—the largest library in Mexico at that time.
In the convent, she enjoyed a stimulating cultural life and often entertained the highest members of society as her guests. Best of all, she was able to pursue her studies. She studied science using the best instruments available. The Church sometimes objected to her scientific studies, though, and once she was even asked to stop experimenting for a few months. But even then, Sor Juana couldn’t give up science entirely, and she found herself making scientific observations as she performed everyday activities like cooking eggs or looking at the layout of the convent.
Sor Juana wrote poems and plays that were published in Mexico and Spain, devoting much of her writing to the discussion of women’s position in society. She argued that women should be given more power and independence.
In 1695 a terrible plague swept through Mexico, and Sor Juana became ill after nursing some of the sisters in her convent. She was unable to overcome this illness and died later that year. Today, Sor Juana lives on in her words and in her example as a brilliant scholar and writer who refused to hide her intelligence or give up her dreams.
Primero Sueño (First Dream) is considered one of Sor Juana’s most important poems. Its beautiful, symbolic language tells of the awakening of the mind:
. . . so the fantasy was calmly copying
the images of everything,
and the invisible brush was shaping
in the mind’s colors, without light
yet beautiful still, the likenesses
not just of all created things
here in this sublunary world, but those as well
that are the intellect’s bright stars,
and as far as in her power lay
the conception of things invisible,
was picturing them ingeniously in herself
and displaying them to the soul.4
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world by writing a book that will open people’s eyes. I will interview people living through crises and give them a voice that will reach millions. Writing this book not only gives these people a voice when they never had one but also gives them a chance to be a part of an even bigger movement.
MADDY CENAC 
AGE 13