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.