About this item
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 Attorneyrsquos 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 Americarsquos infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.
About the Author
Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice, was born in Bronx, New York, on June 25, 1954. She earned a B.A. in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the university's highest academic honor. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She thereafter served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979-1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she was an associate and then partner from 1984-1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992-1998. She then served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998-2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.
