Sonia Sotomayor Downloadable PDF

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On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Maria Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. After controversial confirmation hearings, she became the first Hispanic Justice and only the third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Download this PDF describing the life and family stories of Justice Sotomayor.

Description

Since serving on the Court, Sotomayor has been a member of the minority and has taken liberal positions in most cases. More recently as the Court has moved further and further to the right, Sotomayor has made it her mission to shine a bright light on the effects that her conservative colleagues’ decisions will have on everyday Americans. She speaks passionately and clearly and in legal language that is easy to understand, speaking for the people and to the people. “She doesn’t mince words or pull any punches. When the Court does something that she sharply disagrees with, she says so in striking dissents that provide a real-world perspective usually missing from the Court’s musty chambers.”

Her grandmother, her mother, her aunts, her mother’s friends, all those who took on the challenge of forging new lives in a new country were her first teachers. They were strong women willing to leave their family members and friends in Puerto Rico to come to New York to struggle for better lives for themselves and their children. These families while living in poverty and facing daily adversity created a “cultural village” in the South Bronx, as Sonia refers to it, that sustained them by providing a sense of home and belonging. Sonia grew up among them in a large extended family and with friends who accepted and supported her, and who nurtured her dreams.