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.