Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana was born in San Miguel Nepantla, in what was known at the time as “New Spain,” nowadays, Mexico. She was the illegitimate child of a Spanish father and a Creole mother and grew up in her maternal grandfather’s estate in Amecameca. From an early age, Juana loved to read. She hid in the chapel, reading her grandfather’s books, some forbidden to girls. At the age of three, she already knew to read and write in Latin. At eight, she composed her first poem, and as a teenager, she mastered Greek logic. In 1664, 16 years old, Juana was sent to Mexico City to serve as a lady-in-waiting at the colonial Viceroy’s court (the Spanish monarch representative). There, she came under the tutelage of the Vicereine’s wife and continued her self-education, impressing the courtiers with her wisdom. At 17, the Viceroy invited 40 scholars to test her knowledge about philosophy, science, and literature. Afterward, her name became known throughout New Spain. She wanted to study at the university but got denied because of her gender. In 1677, at the age of 19, she moved to a convent. Convent life allowed Sor Juana to study and write as much she wanted. She also taught music and became the convent’s accountant and archivist. The Viceroy continued to support her and published her writings in Spain. Sor Juana’s writings were diverse and included sonnets and ballads, scholar and philosophical essays, and even plays and music, relying on both biblical and secular sources. Her plays were about brave and clever women, and she emphasized their sense and knowledge instead of the passionate portray that was common at the time. She accused men of their illogical behavior in criticizing women. Her poems often had autobiographical elements, reflecting her experiences as a woman in a quest for knowledge. By her 30s, Sor Juana became the unofficial poet of the court, writing plays and poetry that were commissioned for religious services and state festivals. With her rising fame came the church’s disapproval, and when the current Viceroy returned to Spain, her privileges were renowned. In 1690, the bishop of Puebla published under a pseudonym of a nun a critique Sor Juana wrote of a 40-year-old sermon by a Portuguese Jesuit preacher, alongside a letter he wrote discussing his notions that as a woman, Sor Juana should devote herself to prayer and give up writing and secular studies. Sor Juana published a response letter, which defended women’s right to education, listing biblical and contemporary educated women and using quotes of St. Paul and St. Jerome that supported her argument. She also claimed that women need to serve in positions of authority and to educate other women to avoid dangerous situations and intimate settings with male teachers. Her opinions got rejected by the church, who constantly criticized and pressured her to stop writing. By 1693, at the age of 45, Sor Juana seemingly ceased writing. She sold her books, an extensive library of more than 4,000 publications. Two years later, she passed away after tending her fellow sisters who contracted the plague. She was 47 years old. In the 20th century, with the rising of modern feminism, Sor Juana once again became known for her writings and ideas. Today, she is considered a national icon of Mexican identity and credited as the last writer of the Hispanic Baroque and the first feminist of the New World. Read more...

Ángela Peralta was born in Mexico City, Mexico. Her musical talent was noticeable from a young age, performing solo cavatina from the opera Belisario when she was 8 years old. She continued to sharpen her operatic skills, and at 15, Peralta made her operatic debut at the Teatro Nacional – Mexico’s premier opera house. Soon, she became known for her expressive timbre voice and high pitch range. After her successful show, Peralta traveled to Italy with her father to study singing, and in 1862, at the age of 17, she performed at the La Scala opera house in Milan. In the next two years, Peralta sang in the most prestigious opera houses in the world, including Rome, Lisbon, Madrid, St. Petersburg, and Cairo. During this tour, she became known as the Mexican Nightingale. In 1865, the 20 years old opera singer received a formal request from the Second Mexican Empire to return to her home country and sing in the National Imperial Theatre. In the following year, Peralta performed for Maximilian I of Mexico and Charlotte of Belgium and was named Chamber Singer of the Empire. In that same year, Peralta returned to Europe, making stops along the way to perform in major cities, such as NYC and Havana. On her arrival in Madrid, she married her cousin, Eugenio Castera. Peralta was also an accomplished pianist, harpist, and composer. After her wedding, she took some time off from singing and composed various songs and piano pieces, including waltzes, fantasies, and gallops. In 1871, at the age of 26, Peralta founded a touring opera company, where she often sang her most known roles of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and Amina in La Sonnambula. In 1877, her husband died, and she began a relationship with her manager Julián Montiel y Duarte. The affair caused a scandal in Mexico City’s social elite, who boycotted her performances and paid hecklers to interrupt her shows. Though she managed to recover her reputation, Peralta made a vow to never perform in Mexico City again. In 1883, Peralta went on a tour in northern Mexico. When she arrived in Mazatlán, she and 76 of her company members contracted yellow fever. On her deathbed, she married her longtime lover, able only to nod to show her agreement. She died in her hotel room at the age of 38. In 1937, more than 50 years after she passed away, her remains were disinterred and moved from Mazatlán to the Panteón in Mexico City. Read more...

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was born in Mexico City, Mexico. Her father was a German immigrant, and her mother was Mexican of Spanish and Native American descent, a dual identity that she will later reflect on in her art. When she was 6 years old, she contracted polio, which left her with a limp and chronic pain for the rest of her life. To strengthen her leg, she was encouraged by her parents to play soccer, swim, and wrestle, which at that time were not usual activities for girls. As a child, Kahlo assisted her father in his photography studio, an experience that helped her develop artistic tendencies and an eye for details. She enrolled at the National Preparatory School at the age of 15, intending to study medicine and not art. She became politically active and joined the Young Communist League. There, she first met the famous painter and her future lover, Diego Rivera, who worked on one of his murals for the school. At the age of 18, Kahlo was severely injured in a bus accident and went through more than 30 medical operations throughout her life. During her prolonged recovery, she taught herself to paint, practicing self-portraits. One of them was the Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress. Three years later, at the age of 21, Kahlo joined the Mexican Communist Party. In one of the Party’s meetings, she once again encountered Rivera and asked him to advise her about pursuing art as a career. The 42 years old artist was supportive of the young painter and encouraged her to develop her work. They got married in the following year, and afterward, Kahlo has changed her painting style, focusing on Mexican folk art, as seen in her work Frieda and Diego Rivera. In the first years of their relationship, Kahlo traveled with Rivera to the US to exhibit his works. During this period, Kahlo had two miscarriages, and she used art to reflect her pain, a taboo topic at the time. In 1933, the couple returned to Mexico and settled in San Angel, where they lived in separate houses joined by a bridge. Their residence became a gathering place for artists and political activists, including Leon Trotsky and his wife, who were expelled to Mexico. In 1938, at the age of 31, Kahlo had her first solo exhibition in NYC. In the following year, she lived in Paris for a while, where she exhibited her art and became friends with artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp. When she came back to Mexico, she divorced Rivera, following numerous affairs of both sides. In that year, Kahlo had painted several of her most famous pieces, including The Two Fridas, in which she depicted herself in twin figures, each one is representing the opposite side of her personality – the one Rivera loved and the one he betrayed. After one year, the couple reconciled and moved to Kahlo’s childhood home in Coyoacán, known as La Casa Azul – the Blue House. Over time, Kahlo gained popularity, and she displayed her painting in various venues in the US. In 1943, at 36, she was appointed a professor of painting at the Education Ministry’s School of Fine Arts. In her 40s, her health has declined, and she was diagnosed with gangrene in her right foot. She had to go through several operations, including an amputation. She often used drugs and alcohol for relief but never stopped working, painting herself in her physical and mental struggles, as appeared in her work Self-Portrait with Portrait of Dr. Farill. In 1953, at the age of 46, she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico, arriving lying on a bed because of her condition. In the following year, she was hospitalized several more times because of various health issues, but those did not prevent her attend political activities. Less than two weeks before she died, Kahlo had her last public appearance at a demonstration against the overthrow of the president of Guatemala. Kahlo died at the age of 47 in her childhood home in Coyoacán. For more than three decades, Kahlo had painted 155 paintings, in which she explored subjects of identity, class, postcolonialism, gender, and race. Her work is characterized by autobiographical elements such as physical and mental pain, marriage, miscarriages, Mexican and indigenous culture, and women’s experiences in society and as individuals. Although she achieved success during her life, it was only in the 1970s that she gained fame after being adopted as a feminist icon of female strength and creativity.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Frida Kahlo with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers.   Read more...

María Asunción Aramburuzabala Larregui was born in Mexico City, Mexico. After high school, she studied accounting at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. At the age of 19, she married her first husband, Paulo Patricio Zapata Navarro. Aramburuzabala grew up in a family of brewers. Her grandfather was a Spanish Basque brewer who migrated to Mexico in the 1920s and co-founded Grupo Modelo, a brewing company. Her father served as the executive vice president of the company. In 1995, he died unexpectedly, and various groups try to take over the Aramburuzabalas place in the company. She, her mother, and her sister fought to maintain their share of the company and succeeded. A year later, the Aramburuzabalas used their father’s inheritance and founded Tresalia Capital (three allies), a venture capital firm. With Aramburuzabala serves as CEO, the company invests in large Mexican companies in various sectors, such as telecommunications, technology infrastructure, land reserves, real estate development, and new companies. Aramburuzabala also serves as a board member of numerous companies, including Tory Burch and Grupo Financiero Banamex. In 2003 she became the first woman to sit on the board of directors of the Mexican Stock Exchange, a position she held for three years. In 2013, the brewing company Grupo Modelo was sold for $20 billion. With this revenue, she founded the drink and brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev, preserving her family tradition in the brewing business. As of 2021, Aramburuzabala worth estimated at $5.8 billion. She is the richest woman and the sixth person in Mexico. Read more...