Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor knew she wanted to go into law from an early age. As a child, she aspired to be like Nancy Drew, the detective in the popular children’s mystery series. But at the age of 8, she was diagnosed with diabetes and told she would not be able to pursue that line of work. Sotomayor said it was another fictional character that inspired her next choice. “I noticed that [defense attorney] Perry Mason was involved in a lot of the same kinds of investigative work that I had been fascinated with reading Nancy Drew, so I decided to become a lawyer,” Sotomayor told the American Bar Association publication in 2000. “Once I focused on becoming a lawyer, I never deviated from that goal.”
Sotomayor’s parents came to New York from Puerto Rico during World War II. Her father who had a 3rd Grade education worked in a factory and didn’t speak English. She was born in the Bronx and grew up in a public housing project, not too far from the stadium of her favorite team — the New York Yankees. Her father died when she was 9, leaving her mother to raise her and her younger brother on her own. Her mother, whom Sotomayor describes as her biggest inspiration, worked six days a week to care for her and her younger brother, and instilled in them the value of an education. Sotomayor later graduated (more…)
