Sonia Sotomayor

Born in 1954, Sotomayor was her parents’ first child. As she explains in her memoir, both of her parents immigrated to New York City from Puerto Rico within a week of each other during World War II; her mother worked as a nurse in the local hospital while her father worked in manufacturing. At seven years old, Sotomayor was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis that shook her family. Two years later, her father died. Sotomayor attended Princeton, where she graduated summa cum laude. The summer after graduation, she married her high school sweetheart, Kevin Noonan. The two were married for seven years, during which time Sotomayor received her JD from Yale Law and took a job at the New York City DA’s office. Following this, Sotomayor was hired by Pavia & Harcourt, a commercial litigation practice group. While there, she worked heavily with the designer brand Fendi and became a partner in 1988. Throughout her time as a lawyer, she worked in several public service roles, such as on the board of the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board. She became a judge in 1992 for the New York district court system, making her the youngest judge in the district and the first Puerto Rican woman to serve as a federal judge. President Bill Clinton nominated her to a seat on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1997 and in 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her to the United States Supreme Court. As a judge, many found her to be a political centrist; as a Supreme Court Justice, she often rules with the Court’s liberal bloc. She has received a number of honorary law degrees and in 2010, the Bronxdale Houses development—the development where she grew up—was renamed after her.