My Beloved World
Sonia Sotomayor
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN: 034580483X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.
Here is the story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the refuge a little girl took from the turmoil at home with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother. But it was when she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that the precocious Sonia recognized she must ultimately depend on herself. She would learn to give herself the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a different life. With only television characters for her professional role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County District Attorney’s office, private practice, and appointment to the Federal District Court before the age of forty. Along the way we see how she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children. Through her still-astonished eyes, America’s infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.
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widened, his mouth was hanging. “Mami doesn’t cook that,” he said. Moncho was a merchant marine who brought his kids exotic souvenirs from far-off lands. I imagined he knew all about the depths of the ocean, as well as how to cook things we’d never even heard of. He certainly knew how to keep Junior occupied, and we continued our good-bye tour unencumbered. When we reached Blessed Sacrament, the school yard was empty and silent, abandoned for summer vacation, but the office door was open. Sister
stars. Senior year at Cardinal Spellman High School In the Princeton yearbook, class of 1976 The Bronx comes to Princeton for the weekend: Kevin on the left, standing next to me; Mami on far right, followed by Ken Moy and Junior. Kneeling, front left, is Felice Shea. Beside one of the bronze tigers outside Nassau Hall In the kitchen with Titi Aurora and Mami on a visit home from Yale High school sweethearts just after the wedding in the Lady Chapel at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
and cooking smells. It reminded me of Abuelita’s parties, even if it was just a bunch of middle school kids. I tried to remember how Abuelita had made it happen and translate that for seventh graders. No rum but plenty of Coke and heaps of rice and beans and Mami’s pork chops. Junior stuck his head in the kitchen door and chanted a whiny taunt, “Sonia’s in love with Ringo, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah …” Junior was still my cross to bear, perpetual pest of an unshakable little sibling. When my friends
married at fourteen or fifteen, my cousins at eighteen. I was going to do things in the right order and finish my education first. But with the prospect of my beginning law school at Yale, and Kevin’s own plans for grad school still up in the air, it seemed sensible that he should move to New Haven with me. In our world that couldn’t have happened without our getting married. My mother and I had radically different views of what the wedding would be like. My vision was frugal, modest, and
grimly observe, the only client happy to have a female defender was one accused of rape. Men and women got equal pay at the DA’s Office, but promotions came far less easily for women, my own quick move from misdemeanors to felonies being unusual. I saw many women who were no less qualified wait much longer than men for the same advance. And they would have to work twice as hard as men to earn it, because so much of what they did was viewed in the light of casual sexism. Nancy was doing
