Glasgow Celebrates Women’s History Month by Spotlighting Sonia Sotomayor
For Women history Month we are celebrating all women from around the world, and women from history who have made a difference in our community. In honor of that, we are celebrating someone from today, a supreme court judge, a trailblazer, and first woman of color on the supreme court: Sonia Sotomayor.
Sonia Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican American born in the Bronx, New York. Her parents came to New York from Puerto Rico during World War 2. Sonia’s father was an alcoholic struggling with heart problems. He lost his battle at the age of 42, leaving their mom to raise two kids alone. Since her mom spent most of her time working and her brother was left alone, Sonia found a new hobby of reading, especially Nancy Drew. That led her to a passion for law. She was a student who excelled in school and in high school she heard about the Ivy League. Soon she won a scholarship to Princeton and continued to excel. She graduated from Princeton with the highest honors in history.
Sonia experienced a lot before becoming a judge for the Supreme Court. She decided to attend Yale Law School. She worked as an editor for Yale Law Journal. She was also in charge of a group called the Latin American and Native American Students Association. She was hired to be an assistant district attorney after her graduation. She worked there for 5 years trying to put people in jail for their crimes like robbery. She worked with other law companies, and she was really good at her job.
In 2009, Barack Obama selected Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter who had retired that year. She became the first woman of color, first Hispanic/Latina member on the Supreme Court. Sonia became known for her concerns for issues like race, ethnicity, and gender.
Sonia has created five books to inspire people from all different ages. In her book “My Beloved World” she talks about her childhood, education, and life. Another one of her books “Just Help! How to Build a Better World” is a children’s book with a meaningful story about making our world better.
Sonia Sotomayor has had a lot of thoughts on the education system in America. She really believes in equality in America as well as in education. Her backstory is like lots of other students backstory with their families immigrating from other countries to America and raising their kids in a new country for them to have a better safer, better place to stay with a better education. A lot of people can relate to her in that way.
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Ashley is an 8th grader at Glasgow Middle School. Her family is originally from Guatemala, but she was born and raised in Virginia. Some of her hobbies are journaling, reading, and playing soccer. In her free time she likes playing video games like Cookie Run: Kingdom and Animal Crossing, listening to music, and watching K-Dramas. Some artists she likes to listen to are Mitski, Arctic monkeys, Gorrillaz, and Mac DeMarco.
