Justice Sotomayor focuses on kids at event about books
It was many years ago, but U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor still remembers being asked to get some coffee by a man while she was an attorney in the middle of a case.
“I was sitting there thinking, ‘What am I going to say to him?’” she said, speaking before a crowd of about 800 people at the Harold Washington Library Center.
A male colleague stepped up in her defense, but the moment stayed with Sotomayor and has influenced not only her perspective, but her work as well, she said.
She relayed the anecdote while promoting a pair of children’s books she recently wrote, “Turning Pages: My Life Story,” and “The Beloved World Of Sonia Sotomayor.”
The books are based on Sotomayor’s 2013 memoir “My Beloved World.” The two children’s books will be available in English and in Spanish.
Sotomayor said reading helped her cope with the grief that followed the loss of her father when she was in the fourth grade. “I learned how to make books my friends,” she said. Every time she read a book, she said, she could “escape the sadness in (her) life.”
Sotomayor touched on issues related to the Supreme Court, but there was no mention of the contentious nomination and eventual confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court. Kavanaugh had been accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford, who, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed Kavanaugh pinned her down on a bed and attempted to remove her clothing during a house party in 1982.
Sotomayor echoed a previous call to keep the court free of partisanship, and for justices to “enforce the law and not our personal preferences.”
“We are going to have to show that we are not a partisan institution,” she said.
The focus of the Friday event was squarely on both the books and the many children present.
Students at Horace Greeley Elementary School had prepared questions for Sotomayor, among them, “Why did you become a lawyer?” (partly because of Perry Mason, Sotomayor said) and “What do you enjoy most when you’re not working?” (“Being with friends, getting into trouble with them,” she answered.)
Sotomayor’s remarks were occasionally interrupted when someone in the crowd got up to hug her as she walked through the audience to take questions. At the end of the event, she promised to sign every book purchased and take a photo with all of the children who attended.
Thirty minutes before the event began, twin lines snaked down the block, full of young and old, male and female fans eager to see Sotomayor.
“She’s super inspirational, especially for kids,” said Veronica Brown, who attended with her young son. “I’m Latina, and it’s wonderful to see a Latina in a role like Supreme Court justice. Hard work pays off.”