Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and third female to serve on the highest court in the United States. Throughout her incredible career, she has overcome obstacles in relation to her background and the many challenges that come with being a trailblazer.
Born in the Bronx, New York, in 1954 to Puerto Rican-born parents, she was raised in a housing project. Her father, who died when she was nine years old, was a factory worker struggling with an alcohol problem, while her mother supported them as a nurse. At the age of 10, the TV show "Perry Mason” influenced her decision to become a judge.
Thanks to her hard work and determination, she earned a B.A. from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the university's highest academic honor. “When you come from a background like mine, where you're entering worlds that are so different than your own, you have to be afraid,’’ she once explained.
A few years later, she received her law degree from Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
After law school graduation, Sotomayor passed the bar and served as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office until 1984, when she entered private practice with commercial litigation law firm Pavia & Harcourt. There, within four years, she climbed the ladder to become a partner.
Her pro bono work caught the attention of government officials and in 1991, President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, where she presided until 1998. She then served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In 2009, she made history by becoming the first Hispanic to serve as a justice when President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
In addition to her successful career, she has also taught law and written four books, one memoir and three books for children, all of them published in both English and Spanish.
"I have always tried to approach the law as a learning process, as one of trying to understand how other people have approached particular questions," she has said.
Given her achievements and can-do attitude, Sotomayor has undoubtedly paved the way for other Latinas and women in the law profession.