Sonia Sotomayor. My Beloved World.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
As reviewed by Ted Odenwald
U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir focuses on her formative years, tracing major events, but, more importantly, showing how these events helped to shape her personality, to develop her way of looking at and addressing her world, and to formulate her educational, professional, and moral philosophies. She observes, “I have never had to face anything that could overwhelm the native optimism and stubborn perseverance I was blessed with.” Raised in New York City’s South Bronx, she experienced several challenges: an impoverished family disrupted by her father’s financial disappointments and death at 42 due to alcoholism; her mother’s depression and withdrawal—believing that her only choices were “family fight or emotional flight”; and Sonia’s struggle with juvenile diabetes. “The disease… inspired in me a kind of precocious self-reliance that is not uncommon in children who feel adults around them to be unreliable.” It is safe to infer that here were the makings of an intelligent, strong, resilient, self-reliant individual.
Diabetes taught her self-discipline and a “habit of self-awareness…linked to the ease with which I can recall the emotions attached to memories and to a fine-tuned sensitivity to others’ emotional states.” She developed this habit in her adolescence, where, working in a clothing store, she observed things that were breaking apart in the society “because people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.”
During her brilliant high school career, Sotomayor was profoundly influenced by her experiences with the debate team, where she learned to listen in a different way, “more formal than my intuitive skill.” She learned to “…pay attention for the vulnerable links in a chain of logic, the faulty assumptions and supposed facts that you can challenge….” She learned that feelings also mattered, and that “building a chain of emotions required a different understanding.”
Grateful for educational opportunities, she was proud of her outstanding accomplishments. She was accepted at Princeton University as an affirmative action student, obviously receiving an opportunity which she could never have dreamt of financially. Throughout her schooling, she was pressured by white students who were against affirmative action. But her accomplishments spoke much louder; she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, received the Pyne Award (the highest honor for a graduating senior), and was graduated summa cum laude. Additionally, she became involved in public service work because she had learned that Hispanics were not treated well in hospitals because “no one spoke Spanish.”
Sonia pursued her legal training at Yale University Law School under the mentoring of Jose Cabranes, Yale’s General Counsel, who taught her to learn “…from observing the nuances and complexity of live action, the complete package of knowledge, experience, and judgment that is another human being.” She developed a working style “like a man,” with no disclaimers, apologies, or self-doubts.
In her first professional job, with the office of New York City’s District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, Sotomayor recognized that she was by nature “…a prosecutor, a creature of rules. If the system is broken, my inclination is to fix it rather than to fight it. I have faith in the process of the law, and if it is carried out fairly, I can live with the results.” In the DA’s office, she learned that the “cold abstractions” forced upon law students were “incomplete without an understanding of how they affected individual lives.” In devising her cases, she would build her strategy with reason and logic, and the would “throw herself heart and soul” into the emotions of the issues. “The nearer one is to the realities that had to inspire …laws, the more persuasively one could argue for the justice of upholding them.” Her years in the DA’s office gave her confidence that her background made her better equipped—rather than disadvantaged—in upholding equal justice for the society.
For twelve years she did pro bono work for the Puerto Rican Defense and Education Fund, whose function was to challenge the “systematic discrimination against the Hispanic community.” She served, knowing that education and economic development were crucial to the community in which she had been raised. She learned that doing good for citizens meant “seeing any particular interests in a larger civil context, a broader sense of community.” Recognizing her gifts and refusing to squander them, she sought higher challenges—those of the position of judge.
Sotomayor recognized the lawyer’s job was to protect people, by using the law as a force for good—the law was important for upholding order against the threat of chaos , and for resolving conflict. “The law gives structure to most of our relationships, allowing us all to promote our interests…in the most harmonious way.”
Rather than view her appointment to the Supreme Court as her ultimate objective, Sonia Sotomayor views herself as being on a constant journey of self-knowledge and growth. Each step of her upbringing, education, and professional training led her to a broader understanding of the law’s role within society. She still aspires to “grow in understanding beyond what I can foresee, beyond any borders visible from this vantage.”
Ted Odenwald and his wife, Shirley have lived in Oakland for 43 years. He taught HS English at Glen Rock High School for all of those years plus one more. Now he is enjoying time spent with his family, singing in the North Jersey Chorus and quenching his wanderlust. Ted is also the Worship Leader at the Ramapo Valley Baptist Church in Oakland.