Federal judge Sonia Sotomayor was born as the eldest of two children in the South Bronx area of New York City, on June 25, 1954. Parents Juan and Celina (Baez) Sotomayor, who were of Puerto Rican descent, moved to New York City to raise the family. Sotomayor’s family functioned on a very modest income; her mother was a nurse at a methadone clinic, and her father was a tool-and-die worker who died when Sotomayor was only nine years old.
Sotomayor’s first leanings toward the justice system began after watching an episode of the television show Perry Mason.
After a prosecutor on the program said he did not mind losing when a defendant turned out to be innocent, Sotomayor said she “made the quantum leap: If that was the prosecutor’s job, then the guy who made the decision to dismiss the case was the judge. That was what I was going to be.”
After their father’s death, Sotomayor’s mother worked hard to raise the children as a single parent.
She placed what Sotomayor would later call an “almost fanatical emphasis” on a higher education, pushing the children to become fluent in English and struggling to afford a set of encyclopedias to give them proper research materials for school.
Sotomayor graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx in 1972 and entered the ivy-league Princeton University. The young Latina woman felt overwhelmed by her new school; after her first mid-term paper returned to her with low marks, she sought help with more English and writing classes.
She also became highly involved with the Puerto Rican groups on campus, including Accion Puertorriquena and The Third World Center. The groups, she said provided her “with an anchor I needed to ground myself in that new and different world.” She also worked with the university’s discipline committee, where she started working on her legal skills.
All of Sotomayor’s hard work paid off when she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1976. She was also awarded the Pyne Prize, which is the highest academic award given to Princeton undergraduates. That same year, Sotomayor entered Yale Law School, where she was an editor for the Yale Law Journal. She received her J.D. in 1979, and passed the bar in 1980. She immediately began work as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan borough of New York City, serving a trial lawyer under District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Sotomayor was responsible for prosecuting robberies, assaults, murders, police brutality and child pornography cases.
Remember! This is just a sample.
You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers.
Get your custom essay
Helping students since 2015
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order formOnce we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignmentAs soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download