A Supreme Sotomayor: How My Country Has Caught Up to Me

The phone call came just minutes after Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court. Rose Arce, my former producer at CNN and a Peruvian-American told me the news. I let out an excited shout: what?!

Though Sonia Sotomayor had all of the qualifications, I was truly not expecting to hear the news and could scarcely believe it. Do we really have a Puerto Rican woman from the South Bronx nominated to serve on SCOTUS? Like they say on "Saturday Night Live" -- Really? No! REALLY?

My friends -- accomplished lawyers, a newspaper publisher, reporters of the highest caliber -- were all asking, "Are we dreaming?" We all needed reassurance. My high-powered Latina friends are not just Puerto Rican. They are Mexican, Colombian, Cuban, Dominican and more. And now a woman just like us is being nominated for the highest court of the land. I ask again: Really?

I cannot begin to imagine all the tears shed by Latinas across this country on Tuesday. This nomination, like nothing before it, has made it clear that we finally exist as intellectual arbiters in our America. We exist as powerbrokers. It is a dynamic we are working hard to grasp and own and make real. Sotomayor has made it real for all of us.

All this unity notwithstanding, this nomination has the deepest and most profound meaning for my Puerto Rican sisters. Stereotypes of Puerto Rican women from NYC run so deep in our popular culture. I can still hear Mick Jagger singing, "We're gonna come around at 12 with some Puerto Rican girls that are just dyin to meet you. We're gonna bring a case of wine. Hey, let's go mess and fool around. You know, like we used to."

My Puerto Rican hermanas know that on some level they have always been fighting against a pervasive image. They are brilliant and accomplished but oftentimes minimized to a mere stereotype that is disconnected from reality.

What President Obama has done for men of color, Sonia Sotomayor will do for Puerto Rican women. She will forever and profoundly change the image of what a "Puerto Rican girl" really is.

I myself was used to being the "first" -- the first Latina hired at NPR in Washington, DC; the first Latina correspondent for CNN; the first Latina anchor and correspondent for PBS. The new paradigm is that we are now going beyond "firsts." Just look at Sotomayor -- she's got that wavy-hair-with-the-big-earrings thing. She wears bright colors. She smiles broadly and she means it! She could be me! My 11-year-old daughter sees her on TV and remarks that Sotomayor looks "a lot like Mami's friends."

I want my daughter to avoid this image popular culture has maintained about Puerto Rican women and Latinas in general. This is why I take my daughter to maligned and misunderstood barrios, and why she hangs out with me and my high-powered Latina sisters. She can see what is real and what is not; she is living it.

Sotomayor's stomping ground of the South Bronx -- no stranger to vicious stereotyping -- also produced MacArthur Genius Award-winning environmentalist Majora Carter and Emmy-nominated musician Bobby Sanabria (only the beginning of a long list of erudite South Bronxers). In the true South Bronx, the sounds of conga playing in the middle of the night are welcomed as a sign of joy and passion, not bothersome noise. The true South Bronx is populated by bustling families and kids on their way to work and school who for decades bravely endured and pushed through the drug dealers and users who flooded the neighborhood.

That is the essence of who Sonia Sotomayor is. She pushed through. She stayed focused. She worked hard. She never closed the doors on herself, like so many strong women of color sometimes do. And now her opposition will try and paint Sotomayor as a radical, in part because of the neighborhood in which she grew up. But the Republicans will be in a real pickle if they alienate Latino voters.

Sotomayor will also hopefully break down stereotypes Mexicanos and other Latinos have about Puerto Ricans. Those groups listen to The Rolling Stones too.

This Friday night I will go to a Cuban playwright's brownstone in Spanish Harlem, where we will listen to El Gran Combo and toast a Latina who has "made it." My daughter will be with me. And while I remain stunned by the shocking reality of my country so quickly changing to reflect me and my reality, I am sure my daughter won't have it. My America was always, at best, a place of hopeful change. In her America, a black man can and does become president; a Latina can and does end up on the Supreme Court.

And so this is how it feels to be living in a time of change -- feeling the bumps of transformation like sudden conga beats in the night, beats that surprise at first, but ones I ultimately welcome with joy and hope.

Maria Hinojosa, an award-winning journalist and author, joined NOW on PBS as Senior Correspondent in 2005. A former CNN reporter, Hinojosa also serves as anchor and managing editor of National Public Radio's Latino USA, a weekly national program reporting on news and culture in the Latino community. Among her many awards and honors, Maria won a 2009 Gracie Award for "Outstanding Reporter/Correspondent."

Comments

[unionave]

She is a beautiful lady of Puerto Rico but we must first look at the fact that she has prepared and earned the right to this position . No other person is more qualified . We love her and are praying for her success .

[OtayPanky]

I'm a supporter of Obama, and I certainly want to see all kinds of diversity in all branches of government.

But here's what I DON'T want to see: identity based politics, or and identity based judicial system.

Sandra Day O'Conner got it exactly right on the subject of judicial impartiality when she said that a wise old woman would come to the same conclusions on a case as a wise old man.

To the extent that our human biases, including our gender, racial and cultural heritage, influence our judges, the system is falling short of the ideal of justice. That's not good, and our intent should always be to come a little closer to the elusive perfection that we hope for in our court system.

But that's not Sotomayor's position...or at least it wasn't back when she said that being female and hispanic would make her a better judge than someone who wasn't.

Responsible repubs, like Senators Jeff Sessions and Lindsay Graham, have not only the right, but the responsibility to force her to either defend those remarks, or retract them. They have no place in the thinking of a supreme court justice.

[Inaru]

Things that had no place in the thinking of Supreme Court justices:
separate but equal, 3/5 of a human being, women as chattel, militias armed and ready to subvert democratic government. But, guess what? All those 19th century ideas were totally "normal" and enshrined in the Constitution by - guess who? Justices and politicians with a certain exclusive Eurocentric male point of view. Some other Eurocentric males had other points of view, often gained by interaction with people with different races and cultures, or Europeans with cultures other than Anglo Saxon. They changed the Constitution, first by adding the Bill of Rights, then by adding, all told so far, 27 Amendments.

We all change or die. Adaptation, as Darwin actually said, is what determines who survives - not might-as-right.

[roshni]

I hope all Hispanics are taking note of how the GOP is treating Sotomayor, accusing her of racism and bigotry and insulting her for being part of La Raza. This country still has a long way to go.

[tokenconservative]

Hopefully you were all as happy when Dick Durbin's minutes came out which said that democrats were intentionally fillibustering Miguel Estrada because they didn't want Republicans to get to nominate the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice sometime down the road.

[EducatedObserver]

I do understand the frisson people feel about firsts - black president, Hispanic judge, female prime minister, etc.,etc.

And this is an entirely legitimate emotion, but should be transitory.

For what is important in the final reckoning - in a pluralistic society - is how well these people do, not whatever made them unique at the outset.

[lilian101]

Besides all this First business, Does any remember Benjamin Cardozo a Supreme Court Justice?Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870–July 9, 1938) Both Cardozo's maternal grandparents, Sara Seixas and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan, and his paternal grandparents, Ellen Hart and Michael H. Cardozo, were Sephardi Jews of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community
Sotomayer is 73 years late to be the first Hispanic on the US Supreme Court, if she is confirmed.
No one in the Latino or Hispanic community is proud of Cardozo because he was not an anti-White racist I suppose

[Pleneras]

Spanairds are not hispanic. They are Spanish and geographically europeans not Hispanics who are born in the western hemisphere. Born a Portuguese whose grandparents were residends of the Spanish and Portuguese community means they belong to a community which speaks two languages...nothing about ethnicity. Everyone knows many Spanish citizens and Portugese citizens are of Arab decent, but Cardozo's grandparents family were only identified as Jewish (a religion) resident of Spain. Latino is the spanish word for Latin which has to do with association to a romance language and not an ethnicity.

[aLittle2theLeft]

Ms. Hinojosa seems to have some interesting perception of Puerto Rican women, that she alludes to but does not indicate regarding certain "stereotypes" !

She assumes every one reading her article has the same impression of Puerto Rican women.

I think Ms. Hinojosa needs to clarify her perceptions of these stereotypes that she perceives!!

I would really like to know.

[Pleneras]

That was not the point of her article. Should she have gone off track on every comment or just the one you want to hear more of? If so then that's for another subject.

As for Hinojosa, that was a wonderful read from an American of Mexican heritage about an American of Puerto Rican descent. It's time the media stops focusing on the poor and those arrested and aim their camera's at the doctor's, scientists and inventors at NASA who are PR's Mexicans, Costa Ricans, etc. They walk among the other citizens of this country and/or live next door to them, unannounced, quietly working, raising their children and sending the older ones to college at their expense. Their last names could be Bou, McClintock, Darrow, McManus, O'Reilly, Blondet, Colberg, Coll, Hurst, etc.

Mexican descendants can trace 5 generations or more in this country which is more than many can officially trace, yet they are still viewed as newcomers. Time for a revision of our American history program in elementary schools to properly educate all the children.

[Mugzi]

I'm not Hispanic but I'm all for intelligent people who can relate to being in key positions - it's called progress!!! We should have a tapestry of all colors!

[PazMundial]

What a wonderful article! Gracias Maria.
Last night I was watching the news with my husband (American) and he couldn't believe the vicious attacks on Judge Sotomayor launched by the Right. He was ashamed and even apologetic for the offensive words of a bunch of underachievers.

As a Peruvian professional woman I feel proud of this moment. And speaking of stereotypes, indulge me with a personal anecdote. I live in a Northwest suburb of Chicago, and one day I had to return a book my husband had borrowed. I rang the bell and a 12 year old girl opened the door. Her first words were: "Mom the cleaning woman is here". No offense but the mother was crass and vulgar, originally from north Florida, from a redneck family who had married up and moved to the Chicago area. Here I was with a college degree, fluent in three languages, well read and traveled, and called a "cleaning woman", just because of my appearance. The mother didn't even bother in correcting the daughter, and this is how prejudices are perpetuated.

May she be an inspiration to all girls! Si se puede y viva La Raza!

[lilian101]

Stop me if I'm wrong, but didn't the proud people of Peru elect a Japanese National who committed atrocities against Peruvians and is now on trial for his crimes?

[LeBelAge]

I forgot to add as a Cuban American I salute you and Sotomayer!

[LeBelAge]

Thank you for the wonderful article. With all the ugliness now surrounding Sotomayer's nomination its nice to read something positive. The joy this nomination means to Puerto Ricans and Latinos can not be measured.

[LMPE]

And the best part: the right-wing's outrageous attacks on her are practically ensuring her confirmation.

[queotic]

Excellent article, especially this line:

"The new paradigm is that we are now going beyond "firsts."

[mama4obama]

This is how I felt election night , Nov. 4, 2008. Seeing the look on the faces of my two African American son, the tears of my mother ,grandmother, and father that had lived through segregation in the south. I am very proud that President Obama is our president and equally proud that Sonia Sotomayor has been nominated to serve on the court because I am a woman of color also ans she is my sister.

[juliapg123]

Well said!!!!

Wonderful!!!! My Mexican-American dad raised in East L.A. called me on the East Coast at 6:00am WST to tell me the news. His generation (73 year old men) has lived to see the change. As so many people this week have said to me, first we elected the first African-American, the first person of color and now!!!! Now!!!!! A Latina to the Supreme Court!!!!! Two of the most amazing developments.

I went out in search of an Obama poster on Tuesday and just hung it in my kitchen. It is the one that says on the bottom, "Change." I celebrated with my three children this nomination. I cannot believe this has finally happened. And what an impressive, qualified Justice she is!!!

By the way, there are quite a few impressive Puerto Rican leaders to come out of the Bronx. I think East L.A., El Paso and the Bronx have produced a slew of leaders. Congratulations to all Puerto Rican brothers and sisters!!!! As a Latina (Mex-American) I am sharing in this pride and joy and celebrating Change. Thank you President Obama!!!!!! Felicidades Judge Sotomayor.