Real World Implications Post #2

     One obstacle Sonia Sotomayor had to overcome when she was young was juvenile diabetes or Type 1 diabetes. This condition occurs when the pancreas produces no insulin. The insulin is needed to allow glucose (sugar) to enter the body and produce energy. This type occurs only in 5% of cases, but it is one of the most common chronic diseases for children. Her struggle started when neither her mom or her dad  was able to give her the insulin shots she needed, and Sonia was forced to take them herself. At only nine years old, Type 1 diabetes became a scary but important part of her life.
     Sonia mentions that while her friends and her brother's wife were having children, Sonia had to be more careful about planning a pregnancy. Her mother was insistent on Kevin becoming a doctor, not for the money and security, but to understand the consequences of having a child who has a mother with Type 1. Scientists are looking in to what instigates these risks and have concluded that genetics, weather conditions, virus exposure, and early diets are possible factors. So the question is what kind of impact will a Type 1 parent have on their offspring?

     The risk for a child of a parent who has type 1 is lower if it is the mother and not the father. If the father has it, the risk is 10%, but if the mother is twenty-five years or younger when the child his born the risk is 4%. The risk is even lower if the mother is over twenty-five which is 1%, almost the same as an average American. Sonia was diagnosed at 8 or 9 years old, and if she had a child, the risk is somewhat higher because she was diagnosed before age eleven. Many people with type 1 have other immune disorders, and for those with thyroid disease and a poorly working adrenal gland the risk for is 1 in 2. These concerns made Sonia, Kevin, and her mother hesitate about having children. At the end of the chapter, Sonia says that "having it all" doesn't just mean having the job, the house, the perfect family with children but that having a great career with friends and family constitutes the "American Dream." 

Summary Post #2

     Sonia joined the debate and extemporaneous team in high school where she became very good at listening to others to plan her response. Her hard work led to a full scholarship to Princeton. At the time, she knew very little about affirmative action, and although some questioned her abilities (like the school nurse), she persevered. One thing Sonia was very careful about was money. Her mother worked paycheck to paycheck, and Sonia never really had any money of her own. After her acceptance to Princeton, Sonia wanted to buy a new rain jacket, but when she went up to the counter, the saleswomen gave her this degrading look. When her mother said Sonia was going to Princeton, the saleswomen had a new attitude and respect for Sonia. 

Princeton University

     While in Princeton, she explored new interests and learned new cultures from her classmates who were from New Mexico and Alabama. She realized how limited her view was on other people because she had been confined in New York her whole life. An experiment with rats showed that not everything ends in success and that failure should not be feared. When her mother or Kevin would visit, they would sleep in the dorm room with her (while her roommate found somewhere else to sleep for the night) because they couldn't afford a hotel room. During her time in college, Abuelita died of ovarian cancer, and Sonia felt she lost a part of herself. She credits her grandmother with a spiritual power that is her protector. 

    Sonia joined Accion Puertorriquena which was a student minority group. Some of their campaigns include trying to get the University to hire more Hispanics because not one faculty member or even a janitor was Hispanic. While working for this group, she started learning more about her Puerto Rican history by starting her own class which included lots of reading. She realized the richness of her culture had been overshadowed by poverty. Sonia also started a volunteer program at a hospital where Spanish speakers could communicate with the administration. Sonia Sotomayor received the Pyne Prize which was the highest award a senior could get. After her years at Princeton, she married Kevin Noonan which she suggest a simple, inexpensive wedding (but her mother planned otherwise).

(Kevin Noonan, Sonia's high school sweetheart)

     At Yale, she met lifelong friends (Rudy, drew, Felix, and George) and her first true mentor (Jose Cabrenes). One comment that is repeatedly mentioned is how Rudy said, "You argue just like a guy." It was a compliment although it could be taken as snide remark. Rudy meant that she stated her case and would "defy anyone to prove you wrong." She kept up her with her heritage by studying Puerto Rican immigration policies and wrote an article that was printed in The Yale Law Journal. Also at Yale, she realized her passion for the public sector of law even to her friend's disappointment. But Sonia believed that money did not define success. She worked as a rookie assistant DA during the summer and learned she had to appeal to the emotions of the jury not just logic to win cases. 

     She loved Kevin and showed it when Kevin was attending medical school, and Sonia stayed with him even though she had a 2 hour commute from Princeton to Manhattan for her work. They slowly disconnected, and they split which led to Sonia moving back in with her mother. Sonia out shined him, but Kevin was not made but instead proud of his wife. He felt she didn't need him while Sonia realized she care for everyone but was dependent on herself. She found her own apartment and began saving money for the first time. Her friends became family, and she was a godmother to many. She thought about having a child, but she was more worried about the complications because she had Type 1 Diabetes. She insisted "having it all," or the American dream, was skewed because having a successful career but no children did not mean she wasn't living the dream. 

Affirmative Action

Supreme Court Justices: Sotomayor is
on top right hand side

     My research paper was about whether affirmative action in the college admissions processes should still be continued. Sonia Sotomayor tends to vote on the liberal side and has stated that affirmative action did help her get to where she is now. While her test scores weren't the best, she had phenomenal grades which led to a scholarship to Princeton and later to Yale. She said she needed the help but worked hard to prove she was worthy. She epitomizes what affirmative action should be about: giving the disadvantaged minority students who have the grades a chance in elite colleges. She does not deny that affirmative action gave her an  advantage and actually calls herself an "affirmative action baby". This is a stark contrast to a Conservative minority Justice, Clarence Thomas. He hated the effects of racial preferential treatment.

Abigail Fisher

     She admits that affirmative action policies when she was younger are much different than today where quotas were implemented, and now quotas are illegal. Back then she didn't actually understand that she was given this advantage because she was a minority, but she needed the help. She believes affirmative action programs are still needed today and will likely vote in favor of the University of Texas in the Fisher v. University of Texas case. That case, which is extensively described in my research paper, is about Abigail Fisher who applied to the University but was rejected. She believes that she was denied because she was white, and people with not as good applications were admitted over her because they were minorities. The court case will bring a discussion that could possibly end affirmative action in the college admission process by saying looking at race as one of several factors will be prohibited. The Supreme Court, which is made up of four people that tend to vote conservatively versus three people who tend to vote liberally, will likely vote 4-3 in favor of Fisher.
    She says affirmative action was a door opener that changed her life. She is a great example of how affirmative action can help those that desperately need it. She was born to Puerto Rican parents who barely knew any English, lived in government funded homes, and had a mother that had to work many hours to send her children to private schools to get the best education possible. Her mother barely had enough money for school, and I think she thought Princeton was way out of her league. She is a stubborn women but that perseverance pushed her to be the very best in the elite colleges. I think this brings up the point of a socioeconomic based affirmative action which could surely help those that come from similar backgrounds like Sotomayor. Not everyone has the money to get private tutoring or even go to college, and scholarships that are given to those from low income backgrounds but have decent grades deserve the opportunity. 

Summary #1

     I am reading My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the Supreme Court. This is an autobiography detailing her life from her earliest memories from 8 or 9 years old to present day. She grew up living in the Bronx housing projects with her alcoholic father, disappearing mother, and younger brother. Many of the first few chapters talks about her struggles with her parents that abandoned her especially when she had a rare juvenile type of diabetes. The first chapter is about how at an early age she was forced to give herself insulin shots because neither her mother nor her father could do it because they were afraid they would hurt her. She built up the courage to sterilize and prep her own shots so young. 

Celina, Sonia, and Juli

     Her father was an alcoholic, and although he worked and made money for the family, he spent nearly all his money on booze. Her mother worked as a nurse, and to avoid her abusive, argumentative husband, she worked late shifts, which left Junior, her brother, and herself alone. Sometimes her father was happy like when they went shopping together, but she also compares him to a horror movie. She recognized her father's substance abuse when he would come from work and give her a penny to go buy candy while he would drink a bottle of alcohol before dinner which happened everyday. Sonia was very close to other members of her family such as her Abuelita, her father's mother, and many uncles, aunts, and cousins. She loved spending time with her grandmother because she wanted to avoid the tension in her house. 

Blessed Sacrament

     One thing she had to cope with was her father dying when she was 9 years old. She deeply loved him but also resented him for the times he wasn't there. Although her mother fought with him constantly, when he died, she was driven into deep melancholy, and it took her young daughter to whip her back into life. Sonia's passion was reading books and learning everything she could. Her mother greatly valued education because her father never finished high school. She would spend hours at the library and would even read encyclopedias to expand her knowledge. She became one of the smartest in her class at Blessed Sacrament, a private religious school. She acknowledges that the church had let her down because it considered itself better than everyone else, and she strayed away from the religious upbringings. She went to that school because she needed the best education in a part of New York that was fraught with drugs.
     One key aspect of the book is the culture that thrived in the Bronx. She spoke only Spanish at home because her parents knew very little English; but because her mother pushed Sonia's education, her mother started saying English phrases repeatedly like "You've got to get your education! It's the only way to get ahead in the world." Most of the family lived in similar housing projects fairly close to where Sonia lived, and although no one was opulent, family was the fundamental unit. The Puerto Rican culture was a large part of Sotomayor's early life such as going to parties every Saturday with the whole family. She listened behind closed doors when her grandmother, an espiritista, began to call the spirits and to talk about ghosts and witchcraft. When her father died, they did a rosario for Papi where friends would bring pastries and dinner while praying for the dead for a week. There are several words and sentences in the book that are in Spanish with the English translation near the words. 

    When she was young, she wanted to be a detective, but because she was a diabetic, she could not be a police officer, and therefore, not a detective. She first was interested in becoming a judge by watching a television show, Perry Mason, about a famous defense attorney who always won his court cases. She was fascinated by his character, but the judge was the most intriguing because he always had the last say. She also admired a woman doctor because she was the first woman doctor at the hospital, and this pushed her to be strong female. I am a third of the way through with the book, and it left off with her still in high school, Cardinal Spellman.