Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is the finest writer of the Spanish Baroque period in the Americas, with a 17th-century career that produced more than 40 surviving works of poetry, drama, and philosophy. Her 1691 letter, La Respuesta, is recognized as the first feminist text written in the Americas, advocating for women's education a full 150 years before the global suffrage movement. She appears on the 200-peso bill, a currency inclusion that reaches over 120 million daily users—a broader circulation than any item associated with Pancho Villa. This combination of literary genius and intellectual defiance makes her the most enduringly celebrated female figure in Mexican cultural history.