Sonia Supreme

Pride of the Bronx Sonia Sotomayor Writes of her Early Years

By Howard Goldin

Book review of “My Beloved World” New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. $27.95

BRONX, NEW YORK, March 3- It is rare that a sitting Supreme Court Justice writes an autobiography/memoir. Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to the Supreme Court in May 2009 by President Barack Obama and approved by the U. S. Senate several months later, has written a volume telling of her life’s experiences until her first judicial appointment in 1992. The book was published in early February 2013.

Her memoir, although it includes her education at Yale Law School, her experiences as Assistant District Attorney in New York County and her subsequent work at a private law firm, does not focus on her judicial philosophy. As she tells the readers, “I know some readers will be inclined to sift this chapter [nineteen] for clues to my jurisprudence. I regret to disappoint them, but that’s not the purpose of this book.” (p. 172).

Most of the story takes place in the Bronx, her place of birth. The names of world famous celebrities are not dropped in the 315 page volume as her early years were peopled by family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances who resided in the Bronx.

Her mother and father, natives of Puerto Rico, were part of a large migration to New York City in the 1940’s. Sotomayor introduces the reader to them and to her many other relatives in the Bronx and in Puerto Rico. Her story, told honestly, tells of individuals who, like all others, are a mixture of good and bad, neither saints nor demons.

The earliest positive influence upon her was her grandmother [Abuelita]. Her grandmother’s upbeat personality, warmth and concern for Sonia were a source of strength and happiness to the young girl and remain a sweet memory to the present.

Although both parents worked, their continual arguments, many caused by her father’s alcoholism, were painful to the young girl and her younger brother, now a physician. During her childhood, her mother’s emotional distance from her, only recently greatly lessened, was another cause of sadness for the youngster.

She fully explains the impact of her Catholic school education at Blessed Sacrament, elementary school, and Cardinal Spellman, High School. As with the experiences with her family and neighborhood, she allows the reader to experience the positive and negative of all facets of her childhood years.

An overriding concern to the young girl and her family was her being stricken with juvenile diabetes. The disease was more mysterious and frightening when Sonia was a child than it is today, and it affected her life up to the present in various ways.

Sotomayor details adult experiences as well as those of her childhood years. She relates her feelings regarding her higher education at Princeton University, a then unusual site for a Latina from the South Bronx. She also details her time at Yale Law School and at her first criminal justice position, Assistant District Attorney in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and her work at Pavia & Harcourt, a private law firm. In a more personal vein, she speaks about her marriage and divorce.

Her aspirations to become a lawyer began while being mesmerized watching the television program Perry Mason while a child in the Bronx. They were solidified by her internal thought processing regarding her goals for the future and by individuals who inspired and encouraged her.

Readers who are/were Bronx residents can visualize Sotomayor at places they have seen, the Bronxdale Houses, Co-Op City, stores in Hunt’s Point and Third Avenue at 149th Street, Yankee Stadium, Blessed Sacrament, and Cardinal Spellman. Whether the scenes are familiar or not, the circumstances of her early existence are not unique. With that realization we can more easily fathom the book’s purpose, to inspire and encourage those who only know Sotomayor as one of nine justices on the Supreme Court.

In the preface, she admits she opens her early life and feelings to the public so that “Some readers may find comfort, perhaps even inspiration, from a close examination of how an ordinary person, with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else, has managed an extraordinary journey.” (p. 8).

Sotomayor’s impressive and inspiring life story has struck a chord with readers as her memoir is currently in first place in the New York Times Best Sellers List of hardcover, non-fiction volumes.