Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Maria Sotomayoris an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic heritage, the first Latina, its third female justice, and its twelfth Roman Catholic justice. Sotomayor, along with John Roberts and Elena Kagan, is one of the youngest justices on the Supreme Court...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSupreme Court Justice
Date of Birth25 June 1954
CityBronx, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I stand on the shoulders of countless people, yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor.
I've never wanted to get adjusted to my income, because I knew I wanted to go back to public service. And in comparison to what my mother earns and how I was raised, it's not modest at all. I have no right to complain.
I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.
An alcoholic father, poverty, my own juvenile diabetes, the limited English my parents spoke - although my mother has become completely bilingual since. All these things intrude on what most people think of as happiness.
The challenges I have faced—among them material poverty, chronic illness, and being raised by a single mother—are not uncommon, but neither have they kept me from uncommon achievements.
I think it's important to move people beyond just dreaming into doing. They have to be able to see that you are just like them, and you made it.
It is important for all of us to appreciate where we come from and how that history has really shaped us in ways that we might not understand.
Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in every job you're going to do.
To have a romance, you have to have time. I'm a justice. I've written a book. The guy's gonna have to wait until I'm a little bit freer.
I found in my experiences that it's not that men are consciously discriminating against promoting women, but I do believe as people we have self-images about what's good.
I hope that as the Senate and American people learn more about me, they will see that I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.
I don't prejudge issues. I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me.
I think that the day a justice forgets that each decision comes at a cost to someone, then I think you start losing your humanity.
A career is something that you train for and prepare for and plan on doing for a long time.