Justice Sonia Sotomayor opens up about troubled family relationships, the chronic disease, and her failed marriage that was instrumental for her rise from a housing project in the Bronx to a judge in America's Supreme Court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor 315 page memoir "My Beloved World", published by Alfred A. Knopf, is set to release Tuesday. According to a report by Yahoo news, Sotomayor has already received $1.5 million in advance for the yet to be published book.
The judges of the Supreme Court usually don't give interviews that may reveal details of an on-going or previous case. However, book launches gives them an opportunity to speak about their personal lives. In one such interview Sotomayor reveals that after been nominated as a Supreme Court judge, she was invariable pushed into the public spotlight. Hence, writing this book gave her the opportunity to hold on to her identity.
"I began to realize that if I didn't stop and take a breath and figure out who this Sonia was, I could be in danger of losing the best in me," she said. She didn't want the memoir to be a retelling of her public persona, but rather to reveal who she is as a person, she said in an interview on Sunday night's popular CBS News program "60 Minutes".
The book is being published at a time when the Supreme Court has an ongoing case about the race in college admissions. While Sotomayor was careful not to talk about the case in a recent Reuters interview not to discuss current cases, she did say there was value to affirmative action programs.
"It's impossible to not recognize that the vestiges of discrimination take a long time to erase," she said. "It just doesn't happen overnight."
"That's hurtful. To have your accomplishments naysaid is not something you welcome, and not something that makes you feel good," she said.