CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, PATNA

FINAL DRAFT: LEGAL ENGLISH

TOPIC: MY BELOVED WORLD BY SONIA SOTOMAYOR

SUBMITTED TO: -

Dr. Pratyush Kaushik

FACULTY OF LEGAL ENGLISH

Submitted By:

PRINCE RAJ

ROLL NO – 2245

B.B.A LLB, 2nd SEMESTER

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 DECLARATION

I, Prince Raj, hereby declare that the work reported in B.B.A. LLB (Hons.) Project report
entitled “My Beloved World ” submitted at Chanakya National Law University is an
authentic record of my work carried out under supervision of Dr. Pratyush Kaushik. I have
not submitted this work elsewhere for any other degree or diploma. I am fully responsible for
the contents of my project work.

SIGNATURE OF CANDIDATE:

NAME OF CANDIDATE: PRINCE RAJ

ROLL NO- 2245

CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The research work on the MY BELOVED WORLD has been able to get its final shape
with the support and help of people from various quarters. My sincere thanks go to all the
people without whom the study could not have come to its present state. I am proud to
acknowledge gratitude to the individuals during my study and without whom the study may
not be completed. I have taken this opportunity to thank those who genuinely helped
me.
With immense pleasure, I express my deepest sense of gratitude to Dr. Pratyush Kaushik
(Faculty of Legal History), Chanakya National Law University for helping me in my
research.

I would also like to thank my parents without whose blessings the completion of this project
was not possible. I have made every effort to acknowledge credits, but I apologies in
advance for any omission that may have inadvertently taken place.

Last but not least I would like to thank Almighty whose blessing helped me to
complete the project.

PRINCE RAJ

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................. 5

ABOUT SONIA SATAMAYOR....................................................................................... 6

THEME OF POVERTY...................................................................................................... 8

THEME OF RACISM……………………....................................................................... 9

THEME OF SECLUSION...................................................................................................... 10

THEME OF BROKEN FAMILY…………….................................................................... 11

THEME OF RECEPTION …………………………………… ........................................... 12

CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................... 13

BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................. 14

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 INTRODUCTION

My Beloved World is the recently published book by Supreme Court Justice Sonia
Sotomayor. Coming from an impoverished Puerto Rican family living in the Bronx, and
facing seemingly insurmountable odds like juvenile diabetes and a violent neighborhood,
Justice Sotomayor rose to become the third female justice and the first Latino woman to ever
occupy such a position in the United States Supreme Court.

Early on in the book Sotmayor makes it clear that her book is a memoir and not an objective
biography. She points out that memory is selective in its remembrances of past events which
might be perceived differently by those who were part of her early life. When asked how
much she owed to having a happy childhood during one of the many lectures she has given, it
took her a while to arrive at a response and this is what triggered the writing of her memoir

It is her immediate and extended family, who in spite of the many problems each of them
faced (her father was an alcoholic, her cousin and best friend is a heroin addict, and her
mother is torn by grief upon her husband’s death to the point of neglecting her children and
herself), provided her with the love and inner strength she needed in order to succeed in the
highly competitive world where she ultimately blossomed.

Sotomayor takes the reader into a deeply personal journey. Through her writing her family
members come to life. We meet “Abuelita” (grandma), Papi and Mami , as she affectionately
referred to her parents.

But it is her grandmother who is perhaps responsible for so much of her inner strength, for
Sonia states that in order for a child to succeed in life s/he must have the unconditional love
of an adult, and this is what Abuelita gives her as they share many moments together going to
the slaughterhouse to buy chickens, to the open market and spending many evenings at her
house where grandma makes the house come alive with parties full of laughter and the
cheerful sounds of Latin rhythms.

We get a glimpse of Sonia’s sharp intelligence when at the age of nine, shortly after her
father’s death, she questions the Christian attitude of the Catholic Church when Father Dolan,
the priest from Blessed Sacrament, the elementary school she used to attend, refused to give
spiritual comfort to her mother on the grounds that she did not attend church regularly. Yet, a

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Baptist pastor from another church who had never met her mother does not hesitate to pay her
a visit during those days of grief.

Sonia also lets readers see how adverse circumstances only sharpened her self-reliance and
determination to survive and succeed. We read in awe how at age seven she decides to learn
to give herself the daily insulin shots which are vital for her survival because she cannot bear
to see her parents fight over who will give her the shots.

Books had always been part of Sotomayor’s life. They sustained her during difficult times
throughout her early life. . First, there were the issues of Reader’s Digest and later the
volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica which were bought at great sacrifice by her mother
because she firmly believed in the value of education. Limited as these books were in content
and scope, they planted the first seeds of Sonia’s curiosity and yearning for knowledge while
helping her at the same time get through the difficult days of her childhood and adolescence.

While at Princeton, Sonia takes refuge at the Firestone Library, where for the first time she
sees the magnitude and depth of knowledge there is to acquire as she explores the books
covering disciplines she had never explored. But as she comes into contact with well-to-do
college students at Princeton, she realizes she has not had the benefit of a well-rounded
education, an education that her classmates take for granted.

She is determined to catch up on her reading of the books that make up the cultural baggage
of college-educated individuals, such as Alice in Wonderland and Pride and Prejudice. Many
years later as an attorney she reflects on how the discipline of learning helped her to be a fair
and competent judge, for as she reflects, one often has to become an expert in a given topic of
litigation if one is to make an accurate and fair interpretation of the law.

As a new student at Princeton she also discovers that her English is deficient and heavily
influenced by Spanish grammatical structures; but she is determined to become a lawyer in
spite of all her limitation and systematically begins her study of English grammar and
vocabulary during her summer vacations while taking on a summer job. At Princeton Sonia’s
determination to succeed help her develop an analytical and critical thinking mind, a far cry
from fact storage and memorization which she learned in high school.

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 ABOUT SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Sonia Sotomayor became a U.S. District Court Judge in 1992 and was elevated to the U.S.
Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. In 2009, she was confirmed as the first Latina
Supreme Court justice in U.S. history.

Federal judge Sotomayor was born as the elder of two children in the South Bronx area of
New York City, on June 25, 1954. Parents Juan and Celina Baez Sotomayor, who were of
Puerto Rican descent, moved to New York City to raise their children. Sotomayor's family
functioned on a very modest income – her mother was a nurse at a methadone clinic, and her
father was a tool-and-die worker.

Sotomayor's first leanings toward the justice system began after watching an episode of the
television show Perry Mason. When a prosecutor on the program said he did not mind losing
when a defendant turned out to be innocent, Sotomayor later said to The New York Times that
she "made the quantum leap: If that was the prosecutor's job, then the guy who made the
decision to dismiss the case was the judge. That was what I was going to be."

When her husband died in 1963, Celina worked hard to raise her children as a single parent.
She placed what Sotomayor would later call an "almost fanatical emphasis" on a higher
education, pushing the children to become fluent in English and making huge sacrifices to
purchase a set of encyclopedias that would give them proper research materials for school.

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 THEME OF POVERTY

Poverty has transcended the scope of varied individuals’ success trajectory at large. While
Sotomayor had studied under such tough and challenging conditions, she highly valued hard
work, education, as well discipline courtesy of her mother’s teachings. Sonia recalls the book
her mother bought her, Encyclopedia Britannica.

Sotomayor recounts that such books were a rarity in her hometown (Lee, 2013). Sotomayor
similarly faced the challenge of having to deal with drug addicts that had taken over her
housing projects. Even amidst such dire constraints, Sotomayor managed to top her class and
graduated as  valedictorian.

The justice awards Sonia’s grandmother with specific credits to enhance the scope of
childhood protection services from broader spectrums (Lee, 2013). While the extended
credits from the government served to enhance the prevalent operations of the childhood
protection services, the system still lacked a proper system.

She ascertains that such services benefit from the incorporation  of diversified networks
whose core tenets increasingly relies on friends, as well as family to empower the young at
large.

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 THEME OF RACISM

Sotomayor features as one of the leaders who are keen on the fight against racism, as well as
other similar vile aspects (Lee, 2013). As a Hispanic, one of the few minority groups that
reside within the United States, it should be noted that she faced a wide array of diverse
challenges more so when it came to accepting the opportunities that presented themselves
along the way.

Sonia recounts that at one time while still a student at Princeton University, a series of letters
would oftentimes appear in the school newspaper castigating students based on creed.
Students such as Sotomayor in this regard were asked to grant their learning opportunities to
some other students that were perceived as worthy of education in America at the time (Lee,
2013).

The Puerto Rican lady justice reserved a strong resolve, as well as clarity when it came to
declaring several prospects affiliated with affirmative action. She decisively laid out a
suitable plan to excel amidst such tense hostilities that pervaded the American institutions by
redefining her listening, as well as observation skills (Lee, 2013).

This subsequently led to the creation of a suitable platform that would see her rise in her
chosen career to become lady justice of the free world with a view to nip such aspects of
bureaucracies from corroding the system.

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 THEME OF SECLUSION

Sonia recalls residing in the projects while she still depended on her mother’s income. Sonia
in this regard greatly criticized solitary life aspects that reserve the potential to make even
impose more stringent challenges onto the lives of individuals.

Sotomayor recounts that solitary life greatly limited her exposure (Lee, 2013). For instance,
she illustrates that she had never heard tale of Ivy League schools until a friend of hers
brought her up to speed on the subject.

Following her wake of joining Princeton, Sonia came to the unsettling realization that she
lacked a wide array of communication and language skills owing to the seclusion of classics
in her past language programs (Lee, 2013). This particular stark realization compelled her to
dedicate long hours and hard work towards reading literature.

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 THEME OF BROKEN FAMILY

The theme of broken family plays a considerable role in terms of laying out the foundation
that led to the attainment of success by Sotomayor. Sotomayor, the daughter of a Puerto
Rican father who drank presents an unparalleled description of a typical broken family life
and how this has aided in the shaping of her success trajectory (Lee, 2013).

Following the wake of her father’s passing, Sonia Sotomayor illustrates an increasing
amount of sanity as she later on seemingly extends the decision for moving on without the
father to her family members. However, Sonia reserves an increasing amount of resentment
towards her mother. Certainly, several reasons underpin her decision to become so distant
with her mother (Lee, 2013).

Sotomayor recounts that her mother decisively opted to cut us off from the rest of the familial
relatives. Sonia’s feelings of deep aggravation towards her mother largely stem from the fact
that her mother locked herself in a room to mourn her father shortly after he had passed on.
To this, Sonia illustrates that she was unable to understand her mother’s actions until such a
time as when her mother finally came out with the truth.

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 CRITICAL RECEPTION

Michiko Kakutani of the NEW YORK TIMES describes it as "a compelling and powerfully

written memoir about identity and coming of age. ... It’s an eloquent and affecting testament
to the triumph of brains and hard work over circumstance, of a childhood dream realized
through extraordinary will and dedication." Writing for The New York Times Book
Review, Emily Bazelon says, "This is a woman who knows where she comes from and has
the force to bring you there."Reporter Adam Liptak of the New York Times, who has covered
Sotomayor's judicial career, says that "Sotomayor turns out to be a writer of depth and
literary flair, a surprise to readers of her judicial prose."

Nina Totenberg of NPR writes, "This is a page-turner, beautifully written and novelistic in its
tale of family, love and triumph. It hums with hope and exhilaration. This is a story of human
triumph."NPR's Jason Farago also finds it "intelligent, gregarious and at times disarmingly
personal," but also says that "Sotomayor's tone can sometimes irritate when she whips out
facile homespun wisdom."

Dahlia Lithwick  of The Washington Post states, "Anyone wondering how a child raised in
public housing, without speaking English, by an alcoholic father and a largely absent mother
could become the first Latina on the Supreme Court will find the answer in these pages. It
didn't take just a village: It took a country." Legal scholar Laurence Tribe has referred to My
Beloved World as a "captivating memoir".

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 CONCLUSION

Here is the story of a precarious childhood, with an alcoholic father (who would die when
she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother, and of the refuge a little girl took
from the turmoil at home with her passionately spirited paternal grandmother.

My Beloved World portrays not the Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has become, for
as she puts it, this stage in her life is not yet complete and therefore, she would be unable to
write about it with sufficient perspective.

What the reader sees is a highly motivated individual determined to take up all the challenges
that life offers her pushing aside the obstacles arising not only from her personal
circumstances but also from the turbulent times of change that were revolutionizing the
country during her formative years.

Her story will certainly touch many Americans of all backgrounds whose circumstances bear
resemblance to the situations described in the book.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Mybelovedworld1.droppdf.com ,www.ebooks.com

 https://www.biography.com/law-figure/sonia-sotomayor

 https://www.wowessays.com/free-samples/book-review-on-my-beloved-world/

 https://studydriver.com/my-beloved-world-book-review/

 https:///essays/society/my-beloved-world-by-sonia-sotomayor-review.php

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