Sonia Sotomayor is seven years old. After experiencing a string of fainting spells, she’s diagnosed with diabetes and spends a week in the hospital for monitoring. Rather than listen to Mami and Papi argue about who’s going to give her the insulin shot, Sonia learns how to do it herself. Mami and Papi fight all the time, especially after the birth of Sonia’s brother, Junior, and the move to the projects away from the rest of the extended family. This is because Papi drinks, only emerging from his room to go to work and cook dinner. Mami copes by working the late shift at the local hospital. Sonia resents Mami for abandoning her, but she finds refuge at Abuelita’s house. Abuelita and Sonia share a special connection, so Abuelita coaches Sonia on how to select chickens for her regular Saturday night parties. At the parties, Sonia plays with her cousins, especially Nelson. After a poetry recitation, the adults herd the children to bed so that Abuelita and her husband, Gallego, can hold a séance. Papi seldom comes to the parties but when he does, it’s a disaster.
Sonia regularly visits Puerto Rico. There, she loves helping out in Tío Mayo’s panaderia. During one visit when Sonia is little, she, Mami, Titi Aurora, and Tío Mayo visit Mami’s father in the hospital. Mami has never met her father before, and Sonia can see the anger between them. Later in her life, she thinks of this memory and vows to not replicate it in her relationship with Mami.
In April when Sonia is nine, Papi dies. Sonia thinks things will be easier now. Mami lives with Abuelita until they move apartments. Sonia is relieved that the fighting is over, but Mami’s behavior perplexes her. Mami stays in her bedroom, grieving, which makes no sense to Sonia, since she never saw her parents happy together. Sonia also doesn’t understand why Abuelita stops throwing parties when Papi never attended. To cope, Sonia immerses herself in books. Finally, Sonia screams at Mami to stop hiding. Many years later, Mami shares her life story. Mami’s mother was unwell, so her older siblings raised her. Mami sewed handkerchiefs for Titi Aurora and when she was 17, Titi Aurora and Tío Mayo helped her join the Women’s Army Corps. Mami served in New York City, where she met Papi at a party. Then, Papi was happy, romantic, and artistic, and Mami fell in love with his family. They married after the war. Things didn’t begin to go downhill until they moved to the projects. When Papi dies, Mami mourns the end of her marriage and is terrified.
Following Sonia’s pep talk, Mami perks up. When Sonia starts fifth grade in the fall, school is easy—after reading all summer and with Mami’s recent shift to speaking English at home, Sonia better understands what’s going on in the classroom. Mami insists on sending her children to Catholic school and purchases Encyclopedia Britannica, and Sonia learns from a classmate how to study. During one of Sonia’s visits to the diabetes clinic, she receives a pamphlet of professions for diabetics. She’s aghast that she can’t be a police officer; this means she can’t be a detective like Nancy Drew. However, through watching Perry Mason, Sonia decides she’d like to be a lawyer or a judge.
As Sonia moves through middle and high school, her apartment becomes the hangout spot. She learns that teachers aren’t the enemy and is entranced by Lord of the Flies. Midway through her freshman year, Mami moves the family to Co-Op City, and Titi Aurora moves in with them. Sonia’s junior year history teacher, Miss Katz, shocks Sonia when she insists that students should learn to synthesize information rather than just regurgitate facts. Later that year, Sonia meets Kevin Noonan. Everyone knows they’ll get married someday.
Sonia embarks on a mission to improve her public speaking, first by reading the Bible in church and then by joining Forensics Team, a debate club headed by Kenny Moy. A few years later, Ken points Sonia toward the Ivy League schools. When she’s accepted to Princeton, several school officials are rankled that she got in when other top students at school didn’t. Sonia interviews at Harvard’s sister school, Radcliffe; Yale; and Princeton. Radcliffe is a disaster and Yale feels too radical, but Sonia feels at home at Princeton. She receives a full scholarship. Around this time, Mami takes Sonia to buy a raincoat, and Sonia falls in love with a a snowy white raincoat in a fancy shop. The saleswoman is rude to Mami until she learns that Sonia is going to Princeton.
Sonia makes friends at Princeton, but she’s acutely aware that she doesn’t come from money. She dedicates herself to learning to make arguments in her papers and improve her writing skills. Abuelita dies over Christmas during Sonia’s freshman year, which is devastating, but Sonia is able to talk Mami through completing her certification to become an RN. In her second year, Sonia becomes involved in minority student groups like Acción Puertorriqueña. She later advocates for a course on Puerto Rican history, which she finds eye opening—especially when she takes a trip to the island during an election year and sees the politics she read about being argued in real life. Sonia is also able to see her own family reflected in her readings, as when she reads about women sewing handkerchiefs and thinks of Titi Aurora. As a senior, Sonia is accepted into Phi Beta Kappa, wins the Pyne Prize, and graduates summa cum laude—all things she didn’t know about until helpful friends explain the significance to her. That summer, Sonia and Kevin marry so he can follow her to New Haven, where she’ll attend Yale Law School.
Sonia’s classmates are intimidatingly brilliant. During her first year, she meets her first mentor, the lawyer José Cabranes. He shows Sonia how to be a successful, community-focused lawyer and be proud of being Puerto Rican. As she works with José, Sonia writes a note for The Yale Law Journal on Puerto Rico’s seabed rights. Over her second summer, Sonia works at a top Manhattan law firm. It’s a disaster; she doesn’t get a job offer at the end and feels like a failure. The money, though, is good enough that she and Kevin are able to take a honeymoon. They road trip across the U.S., and as they drive, Sonia thinks about what she wants to do. She scorns José’s suggestion that she clerk, as she’d rather work in public service. In the fall, during a recruiting dinner with the firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, the partner is extremely rude and racist. Sonia’s friends encourage her to report the incident. The student-faculty tribunal rules in Sonia’s favor, and the firm issues an apology.
One evening, Sonia passes a presentation and stops in for the free food and wine. She hears Robert M. Morgenthau, the New York district attorney, speak about jobs at the DA’s Office. She interviews the next day and accepts a job. She commutes two hours per day to the Manhattan office and distinguishes herself within weeks, only to fail miserably the first time she prosecutes a case in front of a judge. Her second case is also a mess, but Sonia becomes good friends with the defense attorney, Dawn Cardi. Sonia forms a good relationship with Judge Rothwax, who is known as the Prince of Darkness, and soon moves on to prosecuting felonies. The new bureau chief, Warren Murray, encourages Sonia to appeal to juries’ emotions and moral convictions. Sonia also begins to see that being Puerto Rican is an asset: she can connect with juries better than her more affluent peers can. During her time at the DA’s Office, Bob Morgenthau encourages Sonia to give back by joining several community service organizations.
In 1981, Sonia and Kevin divorce. Sonia moves back in with Mami and leans heavily on her friends, who encourage her to buy a share in a group summerhouse and to move out of Mami’s apartment. Living in the same building as Dawn is wonderful, and Sonia’s old friend Marguerite teaches Sonia to manage money. Sonia loves children and adopts her friends’ kids as godkids, but Junior’s daughter Kiley holds a special place in her heart. However, Sonia decides not to have kids. Though this isn’t because she chooses work instead, she doesn’t think she could do her job the same way with a child to care for. Ultimately, she knows that people can create families in many different ways.
Following her divorce, Sonia begins to doubt the value of her job. She realizes she’s becoming cynical, so she privately sets her sights on becoming a judge. Bob Morgenthau, however, gives Sonia several high profile cases to try to retain her. She successfully prosecutes the Tarzan Murderer and a series of horrifying child pornography cases. When she finishes the last case, she quits. At this time, Nelson is diagnosed with HIV. His death at age 29 haunts Sonia—he was always smarter, but he said before he died that he didn’t have the drive that Sonia does.
Sonia accepts a job at Pavia & Harcourt, a tiny but surprisingly progressive law firm. She discovers mentors in Dave Botwinik, who’s extremely fair, and Fran Bernstein, who writes extremely well and is immersed in the emerging field of intellectual property. She asks Sonia to help her represent Fendi. Sonia soon becomes good friends with the Fendis. She also begins to work on her image—people are often afraid of her brisk nature when they first meet her. During Sonia’s fourth year at the firm, she makes partner. However, George Pavia and Dave make it clear that they know Sonia is going to be a judge and simply ask that she stay with Pavia & Harcourt until this happens. Fran dies of breast cancer in the spring, and Sonia is forced to confront her own mortality. Though diabetes has seemed like a nonissue for much of her life, Sonia has several frightening sugar lows that might have killed her had friends not come to her rescue. She vows to be more open about her diabetes and her life in general with her friends. She also vows to work on her relationship with Mami. Mami points out that she didn’t grow up observing kindness and empathy, but by being honest with each other, their relationship improves and grows closer.
In 1990, Sonia returns from a Christmas vacation to find an application to be a judge on her desk; New York Senator Moynihan wants to nominate her. She interviews a few weeks later and insists that while she’s only 36, she’s spent her life learning to do hard things, and this will be no different. It takes a year and a half, but the Senate confirms her in 1992. Mami and her boyfriend, Omar, move to Florida after Sonia’s confirmation, and Sonia also learns that Titi Aurora died. Six years later, Sonia is nominated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and marries Mami and Omar as her first act in that capacity. She hopes she’ll continue to evolve as a judge, and she feels grateful for the friends and family who helped her ultimately get to the Supreme Court. She feels blessed.
