My Beloved World

“Having caught people’s attention in this way, I’ve thought long and hard about what lessons my life might hold for others, young people especially. How is it that adversity has spurred me on instead of knocking me down? What are the sources of my own hope and optimism? Most essentially, my purpose in writing is to make my hopeful example accessible. People who live in difficult circumstances need to know that happy endings are possible.”

In this section, Sotomayor has been talking about what compelled her to write a memoir, as opposed to a more formal autobiography. Past justices, she says, have not written so intimately about their personal lives. The questions people have asked her—about what made her optimistic and driven despite the challenges she faced, both physically because of her diabetes and systemically because of family and economic issues—made her realize that her personal story, both of her struggles and triumphs, could provide inspiration for others who struggle in similar ways. Throughout the book, she talks about the importance of having living models of the goals one wants to achieve. Writing her memoir is one way she makes the theme of overcoming adversity through community less abstract and more concrete, as Sotomayor herself experienced with her mentors.

“But experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to the odds of their coming true. Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire. That will, wherever it finally leads, does at least move you forward. And after a time you may recognize that the proper measure of success is not how much you’ve closed the distance to some far-off goal but the quality of what you’ve done today.” 

Here, Sotomayor acknowledges that what she achieved—becoming a Supreme Court Justice—is not a realistically achievable goal for most people, so to make this a goal and determine one’s success or failure in life based on achieving it is unrealistic. Instead, she encourages people to have dreams that propel them forward, one step at a time. She explains how she achieved a series of smaller goals along the way and returns to this point throughout the book. Even becoming a judge seemed “far-fetched until it actually happened” (8). Thus, the value of goals lies in their power to mobilize people to aspire for more from their lives.

“The psychological hazards of such a life are notorious, and it seems wise to pause and reflect on the path that has brought me to this juncture and to count the blessings that have made me who I am, taking care not to lose sight of them, or of my best self, as I move forward.” 

In the final section of the Preface, Sotomayor speaks to a more personal motivation that compelled her to write her book. By “such a life,” she means life in the public eye, presumably both the praise and the criticism, which can cause people to lose sight of who they are outside of how they are publicly represented or perceived. She uses the word “blessings” to refer to her life’s defining factors (10). As the book progresses, this word choice is purposeful: Sotomayor explains in Chapter Twenty-Six that she believes her blessings are a gift she is meant to share, a responsibility to help others. Sotomayor is saying she does not want to lose sight of the big picture, which is being an active participantand using her gifts to make positive, lasting contributions to society.

“But believing that my life now depended on this morning ritual, I would soon figure out how to manage the time efficiently: to get dressed, brush my teeth, and get ready for school in the intervals while the pot boiled or cooled. I probably learned more self-discipline from living with diabetes than I ever did from the Sisters of Charity.”

In the Preface, Sotomayor shares a pivotal life experience: her diabetes diagnosis at the age of seven. She describes the testing she went through and the aftermath of the discovery, notably that her father’s hands shook too much (a result of his alcoholism) to give Sotomayor her insulin shot and her mother fell apart seeing her daughter as the patient. Listening to her parents argue, Sotomayor reflects on how her life will change because of her diabetes. If her grandmother is not able to give her the shots, Sotomayor will not be allowed to stay with her. She decides to learn how to give herself the shot, a process that required patience and meticulous attention to each critical step. Throughout the book, Sotomayor shares that her method for tackling complex or difficult problems is to break them down into a series of smaller steps, which she first learned by giving herself her insulin shot. 

“To my family, the disease was a deadly curse. To me, it was more a threat to the already fragile world of my childhood, a state of constant discord, all of it caused by my father’s alcoholism and my mother’s response to it, whether family fight or emotional flight. But the disease also inspired in me a kind of precocious self-reliance that is not uncommon in children who feel the adults around them to be unreliable.” 

Chapter One explores the tension Sotomayor experienced in her early childhood due to her father’s alcoholism. He was unable to care for his children consistently, and her mother’s response to his alcoholism was to retreat emotionally from the family. She avoided being home when her husband was there and often left Sotomayor and her brother with their paternal grandmother. Though Sotomayor acknowledges that her mother provided other support—insisting she go to Catholic School, for example—she felt distant from her mother and struggled to forgive her for many years. Sotomayor’s diabetes amplified the family problems already present because of her father’s alcoholism and forced her to become self-sufficient in ways that both benefited and harmed her in life.

“But otherwise we recognized in each other a twin spirit and enjoyed a bond beyond explanation, a deep emotional resonance that sometimes seemed telepathic. We were so much alike, in fact, that people called me Mercedita—little Mercedes—which was a source of great pride for me.” 

At the beginning of Chapter Two, Sotomayor shares her belief that every child needs at least one person who shows them unconditional love and support. She identifies Abuelita as the person who served that role in Sotomayor’s life. Though they did not look alike, they were otherwise very similar, and Sotomayor wanted to grow up to be just like her grandmother. Abuelita was acknowledged to have the gift of providing spiritual healing and comfort. This gift is meant to be shared and inspires Sotomayor to want to use her own gifts, which she also calls blessings, for the public good. Abuelita’s care for others inspires Sotomayor to provide care as well, in her case through her contributions in the field of law.  

“I have carried the memory of that day as a grave caution. There was a terrible permanence to the state that my mother and her father had reached. My mother’s pain would never heal, the ice between them would never thaw, because they would never find a way to acknowledge it. Without acknowledgment and communication, forgiveness was beyond reach. Eventually, I would recognize the long shadow of this abandonment in my own feelings toward my mother, and I would determine not to repeat what I had seen. The closeness that I share now with my mother is deeply felt, but we learned it slowly and with effort, and for fear of the alternative.” 

During a family trip to Puerto Rico, Sotomayor meets her maternal grandfather for the first time when he is in the hospital, presumably dying. It is also the first time Celina, Sotomayor’s mother, is meeting her father because he abandoned the family when Celina was born. Throughout her life, Sotomayor remembers her mother’s coldness towards her father and his indifference toward Celina. Though Sotomayor struggles with anger at her mother, she resolves to continue forging a relationship with her so that they do not, as her mother and grandfather did, pass the point of reconciliation. This parallels what she values and attempts to enact in her professional life: to acknowledge differences but also look for commonalities and build bridges that can connect diverse groups.

“When I look back on my childhood, most of my memories are mapped on either side of certain fault lines that split my world. Opposites coexisted without ever being reconciled: the grim claustrophobia of being home with my parents versus the expansive joy at Abuelita’s; a mundane New York existence and a parallel universe on a tropical island. But the starkest contrast is between the before and the after of my father’s death.” 

Her father’s death forces Sotomayor to confront, at a young age, conflicting truths: that her family will be better without her father and that she loved and misses him. After his death, Celina begins speaking English at home, which benefits Sotomayor in the long run. The constant fighting and tension disappear. Sotomayor can have friends and family over and recreate the spirit of Abuelita’s parties with her friends in her own home. At the same time, she loved her father and feels his absence. One truth does not erase the other. Living with these irreconcilable truths primes her to accept complexity and to apply principles within a larger context.

“But the more critical lesson I learned that day is still one too many kids never figure out: don’t be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing. In retrospect, I can see how important that pattern would become for me: how readily I’ve sought out mentors, asking guidance from professors or colleagues, and in every friendship soaking up eagerly whatever that friend could teach me.”

When she is in fifth grade, Sotomayor realizes she does not know how to study. No one has taught her. She identifies a student in her class, Donna Renella, who does well in school, which is what Sotomayor wants to do, and reaches out to her. Donna is happy to share her study tips and techniques, and she becomes Sotomayor’s first informal mentor. In her memoir, Sotomayor repeatedly expresses the importance of seeing living models of the goals one wants to achieve. It informs her commitment to activist organizations like Acción Puertorriqueña, LANA, and PRLDEF that work toward ensuring equal access through, among other things, education and mentoring. In Donna, Sotomayor saw a model of what she wanted to achieve and continues that pattern throughout her educational and professional careers.

“I was convinced I would make an excellent detective. My mind worked in ways very similar to Nancy Drew’s, I told myself: I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out. And I could be brave when I needed to be.” 

In Chapter Nine, Sotomayor discovers that she is not eligible for a career in law enforcement because of her diabetes. This is a “catastrophe” for her because Nancy Drew detective novels had captured her imagination and convinced her she should become a detective (90). Sotomayor also shows, here, that she knows herself and her strengths, which helps ground her when obstacles and challenges shake her confidence, whether at Princeton, Yale, or when transitioning to new jobs. 

“It was a good lesson in the value of learning to express your basic needs and trusting you will be heard. Teachers, I was finally realizing, were not the enemy.” 

Sotomayor’s elementary and middle school experiences at Blessed Sacrament are conflicted. As an adult, she realizes the strict nuns promoted discipline for students who could have been “fatally seduced by drugs and alcohol” and that the school put many students on a path “toward a productive and meaningful existence” (100). At the same time, Sotomayor resented the rough discipline, especially the corporal punishment. When she graduates from Blessed Sacrament and attends Cardinal Spellman for high school, she is surprised to find the teachers listen to and accommodate students. In this passage, Sotomayor’s classmates have enlisted her, among other students, to approach their Spanish teacher about slowing the pace of the course. Sotomayor is surprised to discover the teacher is understanding and willing to address their needs. She carries this lesson throughout her life in various ways, from participating in organizations that speak up communally to lodging a complaint as an individual when she feels she has been discriminated against.

“I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can’t imagine someone else’s point of view.” 

In this section, Sotomayor reflects on the Bronx community where she works and its relationship with law enforcement. That summer, Sotomayor readsLord of the Flies, William Golding’s 1954 novel about a group of boys stranded on a deserted island and their tragic experiment in self-governance. The novel “haunted” her for its commentary on social organization, and she thinks about it in relation to the neighborhood that has come to resemble a war zone (105). SWAT teams are positioned on roofs, the streets are littered with drug paraphernalia, and a police escort accompanies Sotomayor and her aunt home from the shop where they work after dark. That same summer, Sotomayor witnesses a police officer accept a bribe: a fruit-cart vendor provides the officer with free fruit as long as the officer does not hassle the man about his presumably illegal cart. This saddens and frustrates Sotomayor, along with the thoughtless cruelties she witnesses, among them her coworker’s crank calls that may cause their victims real emotional distress. Putting all these pieces together, she concludes that lack of empathy—what she calls the ability to “imagine someone else’s point of view”—is the cause of social breakdown (109). It is a formative moment that informs her personal and professional relationships throughout her life.  

“I remember wondering what made her so intriguing. How could one become an interesting person? It wasn’t just having a boyfriend you could describe as a hero, though that certainly got my attention. It had more to do with her questioning the meaning of her existence, thinking in terms of a purpose in life. She was a teacher but still educating herself, learning about the world and actively engaging in it. I began to have an intimation that education could be for something other than opening the doors of opportunity, in the sense of my mother’s constant refrain.”

These are Sotomayor’s reflections on her high school history teacher, Miss Katz. Though Jewish, she teaches at a Catholic school after being inspired by the work of priests and nuns who worked among Latin America’s poor. The heroic boyfriend Sotomayor refers to is Miss Katz’s, who is Brazilian. She describes him to her students as “a freedom fighter working on behalf of the poor and oppressed under the military dictatorship” (117). Celina has emphasized education as a critical component for professional opportunities and advancement. Miss Katz provides Sotomayor another way of thinking about education: as a way to deepen one’s engagement with social issues. She describes Miss Katz as what educators would call a lifelong learner, meaning that the purpose of education is not only to teach facts but also to teach students to think critically about those facts. That is what Miss Katz encourages Sotomayor to do, and she will hold onto this lesson throughout her life. Miss Katz’s influence is evident both in Sotomayor’s willingness to take challenging new jobs that require new knowledge and ways of thinking and in her description of law “not as a career but a vocation,” meaning that her profession has a social purpose beyond providing Sotomayor herself with personal satisfaction and success (278).

“Seeing my mother get back to her studies was all the proof I needed that a chain of emotion can persuade when one forged of logic won’t hold. But more important was her example [that] a surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence. It was something I would remember often in years ahead, whenever faced with fears that I wasn’t smart enough to succeed.” 

When Sotomayor is in high school, her mother enters a program to become a registered nurse. The challenging work sometimes causes Celina to lose confidence, and she threatens to quit. Around that time, Sotomayor wins a public speaking competition by using both reason/logic and emotional appeal. When Celina threatens to quit, and appeals to logic fail to sway her, Sotomayor uses an emotional appeal: she tells Celina that she and Junior will quit school, too. Her children dropping out of school is one of Celina’s biggest fears. The emotional appeal works, and Celina sticks with her program. It is an important lesson for Sotomayor, who eventually finds well-crafted emotional appeals essential to her success as a prosecutor. She also adopts, at every stage of her education and career, Celina’s approach to meet lack of confidence with extra effort. 

“Here, in one of the world’s great libraries, was my first exposure to the true breadth of human knowledge, the humbling immensity of what was known and thought, of which my days spent pawing the Encyclopaedia Britannica had offered only a foretaste.” 

During her freshman year at Princeton, Sotomayor feels out of place and overwhelmed by the newness of the environment—the conversations she hears around her, and the knowledge and experiences more privileged students bring. Feeling academically behind, she seeks refuge in the library because books have always been her comfort. Contemplating Princeton’s vast library, she feels both humbled and awakened by the seemingly endless reserves of knowledge all around her. This moment harkens back to learning her mother’s family history as well as the story of her parents’ relationship before she was born. Realizing there was more to the story than what she saw first opened her up to how much she does not know about the world. Demonstrating her belief that challenges can become opportunities, Sotomayor transforms the humbling experience into an empowering one, taking it as an opportunity to learn and grow.

“I never deluded myself that I could fill in everything I had missed growing up. Nor did I fail to appreciate that I’d had experiences of my own to prize or that I’d seen some aspects of life of which my classmates were sometimes naively unaware. Suffice it to say that Princeton made me feel that long after those summers spent first discovering the world’s great books, I’d have to remain a student for life. It has been my pleasure to be one, actually, long after the virtue has ceased to be such a necessity.” 

Chapter Fifteen recounts the challenges Sotomayor faced during her first year at Princeton. She meets students whose privileged backgrounds enabled them to take more advanced high school courses. These students can jump ahead to upper-level classes while Sotomayor fills her schedule with introductory courses to address the gaps in her knowledge. Sotomayor feels out of place and alienated from her privileged classmates who make her aware of how big and diverse the world is and how much she still has to learn. She applies her characteristic approach of breaking a bigger challenge into smaller, manageable pieces. Remaining “a student for life” echoes the lesson Sotomayor learned from Miss Katz as well (151).  

“We were different: not only from the generations of Princetonians who had walked through Nassau Gate before us, but, increasingly, from the friends and classmates we had left behind. I couldn’t shake the feeling of having been admitted because of some clerical oversight. Margarita felt it too, Ken said the same thing, and the sentiment has been expressed countless times by minority students everywhere: by some accident of fate, we few among the great many had won the lottery.” 

Here Sotomayor reflects on the pressure to succeed that minority students feel, even if self-imposed. Sotomayor points out these students were the subjects of hostility by some privileged Princeton students and alumni, who believed Affirmative Action students “displaced a far more deserving affluent white male and could rightly be expected to crash into the gutter built of [their] own unrealistic aspirations” (161). Sotomayor’s feelings of displacement and alienation are echoed among her friends. They feel lucky rather than deserving, and their luck is not a gift to be squandered. They must use it to succeed for “the friends and classmates” they “left behind” and because failure would prove their critics right (161).

“Quiet pragmatism, of course, lacks the romance of vocal militancy. But I felt myself more a mediator than a crusader. My strengths were reasoning, crafting compromises, finding the good and the good faith on both sides of an argument, and using that to build a bridge. Always, my first question was, what’s the goal? And then, who must be persuaded if it is to be accomplished? A respectful dialogue with one’s opponent almost invariably goes further than a harangue outside his or her window. If you want to change someone’s mind, you must understand what need shapes his or her opinion. To prevail, you must first listen—that eternal lesson of Forensics Club!” 

In this passage, Sotomayor explains why she did not typically get involved in protests but preferred debate and discussion, which she calls “that eternal lesson of Forensics Club!” (163). She says that changing someone’s mind requires understanding “what need shapes his or her opinion” and emphasizes the importance of listening in order to “prevail” (163). At various stages in her life, her friends and colleagues practice a different approach. The Latino students who met her during her campus visit to Yale demonstrated a more militant form of activism. In the male-dominated legal profession, fellow women lawyers wanted Sotomayor to be more vocal about sexist treatment she witnessed. However, Sotomayor prefers a quieter activism—which she sees as no less powerful or transformative—that is rooted in inclusion. Her sense of community as ever-expanding is a manifestation of this desire to build bridges across diverse beliefs and approaches. She does not judge other forms of activism but claims mediation and empathy as her preferred approaches.

“When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become—whether lawyer, scientist, artists, or leader in any realm—her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than an inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying ‘Yes, someone like me can do this.’” 

Here, Sotomayor speaks to the impact of meeting and working with her first proper mentor, José Cabranes. During her childhood, Sotomayor was inspired by both the real and the fictional. Nancy Drew and Perry Mason helped her see that she was suited to the field of law. Miss Katz inspired her to value learning not only for personal advancement but as a way to continue growing as part of a community. Dr. Elsa Paulsen at the pediatric diabetes clinic showed her that women could be doctors and hold positions of authority. Her trips to Puerto Rico show her that Puerto Ricans could work in any and every profession. Yet none of these figures worked in the field Sotomayor wanted to work. They helped her see possibilities but not how to achieve her specific dream. Cabranes is the first person who not only embodies her goal but is also willing to give his time to help prime her to achieve her goal. 

“But an even bigger confidence breakthrough was shortly to come, with my participation in the mock trials for the Barristers’ Union competition. Perhaps the courtroom playacting somehow liberated my inner Perry Mason. Or maybe Forensics Club experience had come to the rescue again, or a buried memory of Abuelita mesmerizing her audience. Somehow or other, in this setting I felt for the first time I could actually be a lawyer.”

Sotomayor is in her third year of law school in this section and has achieved a string of confidence boosts. Prior to the mock trials referred to here, Sotomayor corrected a professor’s calculation errors, twice in the same class, and he joked that she should teach it. Another victory was Yale Law Journalaccepting her note. Shining at the mock trials further illustrates to her that she is ready to face her next challenge: becoming a lawyer. Significantly, she pulls in people and experiences from her past that have prepared her to meet this moment—from listening to Abuelita recite poetry, to watching Perry Mason solve crimes, to learning how to construct and defend arguments in Forensics Club. In Chapter Twenty-Six, Sotomayor says she becomes increasingly “convinced that nothing had happened by chance” (281). She lays the groundwork for that assertion in this section.

“When the anger, the upset, and the agitation had passed, a certainty remained: I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run. I had been admitted to the Ivy League through a special door, and I had more ground than most to make up before I was competing with my classmates on an equal footing. But I worked relentlessly to reach that point, and distinctions such as the Pyne Prize, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, and a spot on The Yale Law Journal were not given out like so many pats on the back to encourage mediocre students. These were achievements as real as those of anyone around me.”

Sotomayor’s defense of Affirmative Action results from an experience she has at a recruiting dinner. One of the recruiting law firm's partners confronted Sotomayor about Affirmative Action, asking her whether she believed she would have been admitted to Yale without Affirmative Action. She opts to follow through with her scheduled interview and speak to the partner in private. During their conversation, he expresses admiration that she stood her ground. After the interview, she decides to file a formal complaint with the campus career office, drawing national attention to negative attitudes towards Affirmative Action. While she is pleased to have brought discriminatory attitudes to light, she also does not want to jeopardize her law career. Ultimately, she emphasizes that Affirmative Action opens doors but does not push students through them. In order to succeed, students must work to make up the gaps in their knowledge and experiences, as Sotomayor did at Princeton. She is implicitly affirming her support for the policy because it provides equal access to students who have not had the same privileges as other students.

“The CFB was my introduction to the city and state political scenes. Many lawyers I met working there would go on to become power brokers whose awareness of me and eventual support would matter to my career in ways that I couldn’t yet imagine. I had always thought my career would be devoted to principles that transcended politics, but the fact is there would have been no way to the federal bench except through such political channels. It would matter crucially that I was familiar to people of influence who, though recognizing I did not involve myself in partisan efforts, could see that I was at least an honest broker. The integrity I had cultivated so jealously out of personal pride would be my calling card when the time came. Or so I was later told.” 

While working in the DA’s Office, Sotomayor maintains her pattern of giving her time both to Latino organizations and those that serve the population at large. To the latter end, she works with the Campaign Finance Board. This is a manifestation of her commitment to see community both as encompassing and transcending a single neighborhood or ethnic group. Truly serving her Puerto Rican community also means seeing it in its “larger civic context,” meaning seeing how it intersects with and diverges from the broader community (237). Her motivation is to serve, but she discovers her service has an unintended consequence: people in decision-making positions become aware of her name and her work. Her involvement was not calculated for personal gain, but it did benefit her. Sotomayor is saying “networking” and public service are not mutually exclusive (239). The former can serve the latter. 

“Why did I endure, even thrive, where he failed, consumed by the same dangers that had surrounded me?

Some of it can be laid at the door of machismo, the culture that pushes boys out into the streets while protecting the girls, but there’s more. Nelson had mentioned it that day at the hospital: the one thing I had that he lacked. Call it what you like: discipline, determination, perseverance, the force of will. Even apart from his saying so, I knew that it had made all the difference in my life. If only I could bottle it, I’d share it with every kid in American. But where does it come from?” 

Here Sotomayor reflects on the qualities that enabled her to overcome adversity, a recurring theme of her book. She specifies that she encountered obstacles at every stage of her life—from her diabetes and her father’s death, to arriving at Princeton academically behind her classmates, facing a “fiery baptism” at the DA’s office, and experiencing fraught confirmation hearings. Obstacles are everywhere, and each time, she meets them with her methodical approach: breaking down the problem into steps and addressing them one at a time. Beyond this method, she recognizes that she possesses an intangible quality that cannot be taught, or “bottled,” and that is her “force of will” (276). It comes, she explains in the rest of the chapter, from her desire to help others. She anticipates that others may read this as self-aggrandizing and counters that witnessing Abuelita and Celina practice selfless love in their community—healing spirit and body respectively—inspired her to dedicate her life to others as well. Sotomayor chose the law because she felt it had the potential for the broadest impact, but the impulse to give her life to public service is one she absorbed from her earliest influences.  

“I understood the law as a force for good, for protecting the community, for upholding order against the threat of chaos, and for resolving conflict. The law gives structure to most of our relationships, allowing us all to promote our interests at once, in the most harmonious way. And overseeing this noble purpose with dispassionate wisdom was the figure of the judge. All kids have action heroes: astronauts, firemen, commandos. My idea of heroism in action was a lawyer, the judge being a kind of super-lawyer. The law for me was not a career but a vocation.” 

This passage further explains Sotomayor’s decision to pursue a career in law, contrasting it with medicine, Celina’s field. While she acknowledges the value, purpose, and meaning in pursuing a career in medicine, she also believes law can have the broadest and most lasting impact through “landmark rulings” (259). She uses the example of southern judges during the Civil Rights movement who “defied mobs” to make decisions that advanced the cause of civil rights and improved the lives of countless citizens. Sotomayor believes seeking “justice on behalf of those denied it” to be the “highest purpose” (279).