The Book
Sonia Sotomayor was the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. In My Beloved World Sotomayor recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench. Her childhood was precarious. She had an alcoholic father (who would die when she was nine) and a devoted but overburdened mother. It was not until Sotomayor was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes that she recognized she must ultimately depend on herself. She would learn to give herself the insulin shots she needed to survive and soon imagined a path to a different life. With only television characters for her professional role models, and little understanding of what was involved, she determined to become a lawyer, a dream that would sustain her on an unlikely course, from valedictorian of her high school class to the highest honors at Princeton, Yale Law School, the New York County District Attorney’s office, private practice, and appointment to the Federal District Court before the age of forty. Along the way she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children. America’s infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this classic of self-invention and self-discovery.
About First Readings
First Readings is a shared intellectual endeavor for all beginning Brown students. Now in its tenth year, the program provides first-year and transfer students with a common text designed to introduce them to the University and the pleasures and rigors of undergraduate academic life. Students receive the assignment over the summer and prepare a short response paper highlighting something they find particularly compelling, difficult, or unclear in the reading. During Orientation, students meet in small groups for a First Readings Seminar led by a faculty member or administrator. These seminars afford students the chance to meet their peers and to begin conversations based upon their shared readings and initial written reactions. The Dean of the College and Brown Alumni Association sponsor the program.