Who is Sonia Sotomayor?
NEW YORK– Sonia Sotomayor’s path to the pinnacle of the legal profession began in the 1960s at a Bronx housing project just a couple blocks from Yankee Stadium, where she and her family dealt with one struggle after another. She suffered juvenile diabetes that forced her to start insulin injections at age 8. Her father died the next year, leaving her to be raised by her mother a nurse at a methadone clinic who always kept a pot of rice and beans on the stove. The parents had moved from Puerto Rico. Sotomayor immersed herself in Nancy Drew books and spent hours watching Perry Mason on television, and knew she wanted to be a judge by the age of 10 after being inspired by a Perry Mason episode that ended with the camera settling on the robed sage. “I realized that the judge was the most important player in that room,” Sotomayor said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press. Now, Sotomayor is one of the most important players in the nation after being nominated for a Supreme Court se
Sonia Sotomayor’s path to the pinnacle of the legal profession began in the 1960s at a Bronx housing project just a couple blocks from Yankee Stadium, where she and her family dealt with one struggle after another. She suffered juvenile diabetes that forced her to start insulin injections at age 8. Her father died the next year, leaving her to be raised by her mother — a nurse at a methadone clinic who always kept a pot of rice and beans on the stove. The parents had moved to New York from Puerto Rico. Sotomayor was a fan of a television show about the law, “Perry Mason,” and knew she wanted to be a judge by the age of 10. “I realized that the judge was the most important player in that room,” Sotomayor said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press. Now, Sotomayor is one of the most important players in the nation after being nominated for a Supreme Court seat by President Barack Obama. It is the crowning accomplishment in a career that included a long list of achievements: Yale
In this May 2003 photo released by Pace University, judge Sonia Sotomayor delivers the 2003 commencement address in White Plains, N.Y. President Barack Obama chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, May 26, 2009, praising her as “an inspiring woman” with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely.
