My Beloved World

Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and third female associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She has faced rough conditions throughout her life before becoming a Supreme Court justice. Sonia Sotomayor was eight years old when she was hospitalized with a rare juvenile diabetes (Type I), where she learned to give herself insulin shots at home. “It then dawned on me: If I needed to have these shots every day for the rest of my life, the only way I’d survive was to do it myself.” When Sonia was nine, she faced a tragic event of her father’s death. Hence the fact that her father was an alcoholic, Sonia learned to watch people ―the skill of looking for subtle physical signs that trouble is coming. She acquired the skill to watch people and used that skill when she was a lawyer. When witnesses and suspects hesitated, she would assume that they are trying to hide something. After her father’s death, Sonia’s mother worked hard to raise the children as a single parent. During her childhood, she fell in love with detective stories; one of her favorite one was detective series by Nancy Drew. It was this that inspired Sonia’s interest in the studies of law. Once Sonia focused on becoming a lawyer, she never deviated from that goal. Living through rough conditions during her childhood, Sonia learned to use adversity to tap her unsuspected strength to the journey of becoming the person she is today.

Sonia was able to overcome adversity after being diagnosed with diabetes when she was eight years old, she knew that her life would change from that point on. She couldn’t have relied on her mother that worked all the time and her father that’s struggling with alcoholism that attempted to give her shots but did not have the conditions to. “I sweat, Juli, you’ll kill that child if you don’t learn how to do this!” (Pg.3) Having diabetes roughen the conditions of the way her family lived, Sonia’s mother would argue with her father about being able to give her shots. Sonia quickly realized and learned to give herself insulin shots every day so she does not have to rely on others and put them in stress. In fact, Sonia has gained from having diabetes. Diabetes has caused her to have the discipline, and dedication to live on and placed her into the mindset that her life might be short and that she shouldn’t waste a minute of her life. “I probably learned more self-discipline from living with diabetes than I ever did from the Sisters of Charity.” (Pg.5) Having diabetes also made Sonia into a more independent person and she used diabetes as a motivation to become a better person than she already was.

At the age of nine, Sonia’s father left with the tragic end of his long battle with alcohol. After her father’s death, Sonia’s mother was often angry and unhappy. Watching her mother develop into a different person than she was before her father’s death, Sonia also develop and grew to be more independent. She mostly spoke Spanish at home but after her father’s death, Sonia turned to reading books as a consolation, and one of her inspiration that led her to the path of law was the detective series of Nancy Drew. Therefore, her English starting getting more fluent. From the motivation of her mother, a single parent that didn’t have much education ambitiously raising two children, Sonia was driven by the fact that her mother worked indefatigably. During her fifth grade year, Sonia was so determined to learn and to be successful. She asked one of the smartest girls in class on how to study. “It was then, in Mrs. Reilly’s class, under the allure of those gold stars, that i did