Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans/Selected Individual/8

Sonia Maria Sotomayor /ˈsoʊnjə ˌsoʊtoʊmaɪˈjɔːr/, Spanish: [ˈsonja sotomaˈʝor]; (born June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She is the 111th appointment to the Court, has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic heritage, and its third female justice. Sotomayor shares with John Roberts and Elena Kagan being among the youngest justices on the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City to Puerto Rican-born parents. Her father died when she was nine, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four and a half years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board. (more...)