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“ “Not everyone in a poor neighborhood is a criminal, and I think that my story details that reality – that part of the reality that people often don’t see.”— US Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor discusses her new memoir My Beloved World and her life on the bench.
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show this morning about her life in New York City and how her experiences here led to her career on the bench. She started by talking about the tenement building where she spent her early years, and the Bronx neighborhood where her family lived:
“It was Kelly Street, and even at the time it was decaying. The stairways were very, very dark, the walls were peeling. At that time, as you may remember, there was a problem with lead paint, but who knew about lead paint back then."
“The neighborhood had already become crime-ridden. As the book details, most of my childhood the neighborhood was called Fort Apache – one of the worst crime areas in the nation at the time. It was a difficult neighborhood in the sense of so many challenges for so many people, whether it was drugs or poverty or crime, each of it presented its own problems."
“I very much try in my book to remind people that there are people in those neighborhoods, and really people just like them – with the same family values, with the same sense of love and caring about neighbors, and the same sense of wanting to do better in life. Not everyone in a poor neighborhood is a criminal, and I think that my story details that reality – that part of the reality that people often don’t see.”
Justice Sotomayor said she is “heartbroken” about the pending closing of her grammar school, the Blessed Sacrament School in Soundview. She also spoke about attending Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, and credited her junior year history teacher, Ms. Katz, with inspiring her to think critically about the school.
“She and her boyfriend were heavily involved in progressive social issues in Latin America. She challenged us to think critically about history – not merely to recite facts but to analyze the forces that led to conditions throughout history. And that was the first time someone challenged me to think analytically, and so for me that was a progressive teacher.”
“In the end, I chose to be an involved citizen – something that I advocate to kids all the time. When kids or adults ask me what I think about a particular law, my response almost always is ‘look, I can’t tell you what I think about a law that I’m going to be judging as a judge, but I can tell you that what’s really important is what you think.’”
“I was a protected kid from a Puerto Rican family. […] The idea of being progressive or socially involved in the way I’m talking about was not a part of the world I was in at the time.”
Her family’s Puerto Rican roots were strengthened by vacations taken to the island via the discounted PanAm air bus. “And so my very tiny little world at the time, included an island that many miles away.” The Justice declined to share her opinion on statehood for Puerto Rico, citing possible future cases. She also declined to speak about today’s 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade for the same reason.
“I don’t express a view that I’m going to say publicly because I fear that people are going to give it more importance than it deserves, but more importantly because I can anticipate that if the rights of statehood are given to Puerto Ricans someday, there will be some legal challenges to the process – it’s inevitable.”
Justice Sotomayor writes about her positive experience with affirmative action, and her memoir has been compared to Justice Clarence Thomas’ more negative impressions. The court is revisiting affirmative action in Fisher v. University of Texas.
“Everyone comes from their life experiences, concentrating perhaps or seeing one side more than another. To the extent that I’m very open about the stigma that was directed at me for being an affirmative action beneficiary, I talk about numerous instances.”
“It’s not how the door of opportunity opened, it’s what I do with that door once I get in – and I’ve tried to live in a way that proves that it’s not just sheer numbers that get you into school, that the complex is more complicated than that. It’s the whole person. And that’s what’s missing in this conversation.”
Last week, Justice Thomas broke nearly seven years of silence on the bench during oral arguments – but it’s not clear what he said. Even Justice Sotomayor, who was there last Monday, couldn’t hear.
“As you know, the laughter was unbelievable at the time – and a few of us were looking at each other trying to figure out what he said. He is next to Justices Breyer and Scalia, and I don’t even know if they heard him. But it was awfully for people to hear him laugh, because he has a contagious, wonderful laugh.”
Comments [49]
Future legal historians may ponder the fact that both US Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and former US Attorney-General Michael Mukasey gew up in the same neighborhood, served by the Pelham Bay Line (#6), a couple of blocks and a generation apart. Something in that Bronx water?
I think it would be an excellent idea that sitting judges write memoirs, it serves as a way to access - if not the minds - the lives of the people we have indirectly entrusted, through our elected presidents to serve as the final arbitor, on the laws passed by the representatives we elected.
It is always exciting to learn who or what inspired a person's (famous or not) world of critical thinking. When I turned eight years old, and my parents gave me a library card. They took me and my siblings to the library, and rather than just bringing us directly to the childrens section, they simply said, "all of these books are available for you to read." It was years before I successfully understood the books from the Science, History and Literature sections in the main library, but from the age of 8, I tried, and it made it possible to open my mind very early.
Dr Joseph Inners, "Remedial" Comp (for those who could not get into Freshman Comp), Suffolk Community College, 1985. I am not sure if Dr. Inners ever really new my story, that I had been very close to dropping out of high school and really had no ambition toward higher education, but somehow, quite accidentally, I found myself in the spring term at Suffolk. Dr Inners taught me that I could write (he did not teach me to write - I did that over many years with the help of other professors at other schools and on my own. He planted something in my head that took me on to a major four year university and led me to take graduate classes in English. Later, I put my degree to work as a professional writer (a job which involved a lot of travel) and have written more than volumes of fiction some of which I hope to someday have published. Dr. Inners, it would not have happen without you.
Dr Mary H. Laprade changed my life when I had her for Vertebrate Zoology at Smith College. She taught in such a passionate and elegant way that it became the most compelling subject I had ever studied. Because of her, I became a physician assistant, and have the great privilege of having her as my friend for the last 30 years.
Norman Lear - Taught me more about racial and gender equality issues via his TV shows (All in the Family, Maude, and The Jeffersons) than any one person ever could. I suspect this is true for many others as well.
My Ms. Katz was Deanna Dennis. She was the head librarian at my high school. She changed my life and opened my eyes to the wider world beyond our little school in KY. Because of her I went to college at NYU and picked International Affairs as my degree. My only regret was that I was never able to tell her before her death.
Justice Sotomayor's comments about growing up
in the Bronx resonated with my own childhood
in the 1940s-50s in Brooklyn. Two teachers whose
memories it gives me great joy to honor were
Blanche Schacter, my J.H.S. 240 (Andres Hudde JHS)
physical education teacher and my social studies
teacher during the same years at Andres Hudde,
too, Sybil Berson ******************
They didn't only talk the talk, they walked
and stood their ground tall and firm
and radiated a sense of ethical
citizenship and partnership
and partnership in a wide
world.
Brian, what a wonderful point to highlight from
yesterday's interview with Justice Sotomayor.
Justice Sotomayor is such a great voice in this country. I personally hope she doesn't stay on the Court forever, maybe 15 years, and becomes a university professor, so we can have more of her insight. (Of course, she should only leave if there's a Democratic president in office to select her replacement).
Why so much hostility today, commenters? What's the matter with writing a memoir about vast territory covered, success and the American Dream? I don't see someone seeking celebrity, I am listening to someone who has a lot to say to all of us - in at least two languages.
http://jeff560.tripod.com/chronotv.html
"Apr. 30, 1964. Television sets manufactured as of this date are required to receive UHF channels."
Before this, to receive UHF you needed an external converter box.
Regarding UHF TV...
"Unfortunately, common TV sets could not receive UHF until 1962, that is when Pioneer Ron Joseph started offering adapters that would convert UHF signals for older TV sets. By this time, WPCA had exhausted its original funding, and new sponsors were not interested in UHF television (that nobody could receive)."
http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/bp9/wpca.html
yes, Brownsville was a slummy breeding ground for criminal gangs for well over a century, but the mobsters were not like the street gangs that I had to try to avoid like the plague getting to and from my projects apartment. My only refuge, besides my apartment, was the library, though the 4 block walk there was always a frightful challenge. It took me many years to get over the trauma growing up in Brownsville in the late '50s. When we got to a middle class area in Flatbush, I thought I was in heaven. I could actually walk around the whole block without fearing for my life. It was a revelation.
@jg - I had to go to Brownsville, for the fist time in a looong time, on business this weekend, still got the hibi-jibbies. Makes you love gentrification.
What a wonderful role model you are! Thank you! So looking forward to reading your book.
My daughter,now commencing her 1st college days would love to intern under or shadow you at work some time. Though I'm sure you have hundreds of young ladies inquiring, please let her know protocol if there is a chance.
All best wishes,
jgarbuz, Brownsville in Brooklyn has always been a poorer neighborhood and always had higher crime than the rest of the city.
The infamous "Murder Inc." made up of gangsters Albert Anastasia, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigel started in Brownsville!!
The "measure and goal" of the poor caller, is to pay of her student loans from law school, before she is 50.
Did she ever actually practice law, it is a tough dirty business. i find that people who attend the ivy league schools practice in another world. It comes down to money.
Justice Sotomayor, does it bother you that in NYC the Bill of Rights is cherry-picked and only portions of it apply? Those peaceably assembling, or those just walking around if they are young black males, are attacked, searched and falsely arrested by thugs under orders from Generalissimo Mayor for as long as I wanna be Michael Bloomberg. No speedy trial either, through a clever ruse exercised by his errand boy Cyrus Vance there is no time limit to prosecute. The DA says ready for trial during the two months between court dates, suddenly not ready on the court date, then ready again a few days later for the two months until the next. Repeated over and over. Thus the clock 60- or 90-day time limit to prosecute barely begins to tick away, and defendants are held in limbo for a year or more. Good luck on your book though. I am certain it will inspire a certain camp.
I am encouraged to see that other posters have concerns about SCOTUS justices seeking broader celebrity. But, I guess Brian is too star struck to discuss this. Is this the new normal? Maybe celebrity idolatry is overtaking the importance of maintaining modesty and rigor in our most valuable institutions (e.g. our courts and our news media).
"Lawyering" is "noble"??
Maybe somewhere...
To Sheldon,
Wikipedia -Brownsville
"Brownsville was mostly Jewish and politically radical from the 1880s to the 1950s; throughout the 1920s and 1930s, it elected Socialist and American Labor Party candidates to the state assembly.[6]
As early as the 1910s, the area had acquired a reputation as a vicious slum and breeding ground for crime. It has been known throughout the years for its criminal gangs and in the 30s and 40s achieved notoriety as the birthplace of Murder, Inc. It was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood until the 1960s, when its population had become largely black and Brownsville's unemployment rate was 17 percent. Half of all families in the district lived on less than $5,000 a year.
Journalist Jimmy Breslin wrote in 1968 that Brownsville reminded him of Berlin after World War II; block after block of burned-out shells of houses, streets littered with decaying automobile hulks. The stores on the avenues are empty and the streets are lined with deserted apartment houses or buildings that have empty apartments on every floor."
I love her strength, and direct approach. I will be buying the book.
We are supposed to sit here and believe that she doesn't know what Clarence Thomas said the other day?
@Bonn: All Supreme Court justices have done writings outside of the Court and do appearances. C-Span covers many of those public discussions with SCOTUS members.
To Sheldon,
In Brownsville- East New York, they sure were by 1959! I was there. You weren't. WE moved from a slum into one of the first projects in 1952. It was mostly white and many Jews as well. Then we moved into the newer Van Dyke projects on Sutter and Stone in 1956 and man you should have been there! There was a tsunami of poor blacks pouring in from the south with mattresses on their backs. Brownsville became Beirut. Never a "good neighborhood," it turned into Berlin during the Soviet attack on Hitler's bunker. You had to have been there. :) Brownsville was almost reduced to rubble.
The slippery insincere vindictive thinking of the attorney or the judge is nothing to encourage children with.
To caller Jose:
Critical thinking creates moral and ethical questions. And the problem for the anti-critical thinking crowd is that such mind analytics will discredit the status quo.
jgarbage, my tv have uhf in 1961, so you might want do a lil' research before spouting off all the time.
"On December 29, 1949, KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut, became the first UHF television station to operate on a regular daily schedule."
I also grew up poor (and Jewish) in the Bronx. One summer, I worked in the South Bronx at a large (unnamed) department store in the credit department. After I had taken a poor Latino man's last installment payment for a TV, I told him that since he had paid it off ahead of time, he was entitled to money back, which I happily gave him and he proudly accepted. Next thing I know, my supervisor is up in my face telling me NEVER to do that again. More than college that was my education in prejudice and inequality. (But I am a little put off by her writing a book and going on talk shows. It is unseemly for a Supreme Court Justice.)
If she makes it a policy to not express her personal views about things, why is she releasing a book? To tell the story of scratching a wall with her tricycle?
jg - my math is bad but I doubt the projects were "all black and hispanic" when you were 13.
I went to public schools in the 60's all my teachers were jewish women. I had a very good education and they were not radicals. God bless all of them.
She should have left out the Alice in Wonderland story. Make her sound like a light weight. WOW I am disappointed.
We have a (dumb) biased radical on the SCOTUS.
They (PRDEF) aren't left wing !!?????
THEY themselves say they are!!
There was no UHF, much less channel 41 or 47 in the 1950s and '60s.
"I grew up to become an attorney."
Unfortunately, not something to be proud of anymore. They're a dime a dozen. One notch above used car salesmen.
Thank you Brian for having Justice Sotomayer on your show. She is an inspiration to all of us that came from nothing. Her story, her memoir is important for us to all know, we need to know that it is possible to work our way out of poverty. Thank you for being such an inspiration. As someone born and raised in the Bronx I am proud to tell anyone who will here, that we have a supreme court justice, a woman and a latino!
That's right, Supreme Court Justice. YOU make the laws with impunity to suit yourselves and the corporate power structure, and then challenge the powerless average citizen to change them if we don't like them. Real friendly to the American citizen.
"did she ever watch TV, and not channel 41 0r 47??"
John, I could say, "that's kinda racial", but you would say "I'm Hispanic, so I can say that" and I would say "whatever"
So, I will just say whatever, now.
To Sheldon
She should have been a young Jew with a yarmulka on growing up in the all black and hispanic housing projects, and then she and her Jewish radical teacher would have seen things through my eyes as a kid. From the age of 8 though 13, when we finally got out of that hell hole, my life was filled with constant dread.
Brian asks "And the moral of the story is?" and she responds with a rambling pointless description of the new project buildings and grass. What? Is there ANYONE out there that can respond to a simple direct question with an answer that has something to do with the question? Is this the level of mentality that is on the Supreme Court today? Oh wait...Citizens United...I guess so.
In December 2011, I went to a performance of the Bronx Messiah at the Lehman College auditorium. When Judge Sonia Sotomayor came up front to read her line from the Oratorio, everybody rose as one and applauded her for a minute or two. It was wonderful.
I grew up poor in Brooklyn in the 60's, I grew up to become an attorney. I knew about and read Alice in wonderland, where was this woman until college?? and Moby Dick, did she ever watch TV, and not channel 41 0r 47??
I hope the book does enlighten people as she says to the fact that most of the people in depressed areas are just poor and not criminals. I grew up in the South Bronx as a child in the 50s living there just before the blight she speaks of that started in the mid-60s until the beginning 70s when suddenly there was a "South" Bronx. It took me decades to accept the fact of a "South" Bronx that gradually crawled right up the Fordham Road which we considered the northern Bronx!!! Good luck to you Justice Sotomayor we ARE all so very proud to have you represent us Bronxites to the country and the world. You are a shining star for sure.
Jg - because you're not as "enlightened" as she is.
I grew up in the housing projects of Brownsville. Why am I not a supreme court justice too?
Sonia Sotomayor - a true inspiration.
Isn't it interesting that the Supreme Court has two justices that are beneficiaries of affirmative action. Guess that means it works.
Let’s not forget Laurence Tribe’s warning to Obama not to appoint Sotomayor-
“Leaked: Obama Mentor’s Blunt Advice on Court Choices” (NYT, October 2010 and Washington Post)
“Bluntly put, she’s not as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire.....”
(http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/leaked-obama-mentors-blunt-advice-on-court-choices/)
(http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/10/laurence-tribe-unfiltered-on-s.html)
Heard bout her relationship with certain Bronx Non Profit museum, hear some shady money and funding from politicians and their families there...
I am leery of those who seek celebrity, so I find it a bit unsettling for a freshly appointed Supreme Court justice to be seeking this sort of attention. Realistic of not, I like to think of Supreme Court Justices as being more about wonk and less about ego.
What is the precedent for sitting justices writing memoirs?
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