La Jueza
Posted June 1st, 2009by Ilan Stavans
The nomination by President Barack Obama of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court Justice for the seat left vacant by Judge David Souter is reason to celebrate. A full-fledged confirmation is in store in which not only the Senate but the American people need to find out her views on a number of decisive issues, abortion among them. There have been rumors about a sometimes abrasive working style and the distance between the justice and political activism that also require examination. But Judge Sotomayor, about whom I’ve been reading for years, is a superb candidate.
In the last eight years, the Supreme Court—at least since the debacle between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore—has slowly moved to the right. This move has been all the more troublesome because in those same years the country has become increasingly heterogenous in its ethnic constituency. Also, women have moved upward to important positions of power. The court, however, looks like the same ol’ boys club it has been for decades. With the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’ Connor the number of women members has decreased. And minority voices, physically as well as metaphorically, have been silenced. The lineage of Justice Thurgood Marshall became opaque with the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas, arguably the least inspiring justice ever seated on the court.
If approved, Judge Sotomayor will bring some sabor to the institution. Her credentials are impeccable: an undergraduate degree from Princeton, where she graduated summa cum laude; a stellar performance at Yale Law School, where she became editor of the school’s law journal; and distinguished stints as Assistant District Attorney in New York for five years and on the U.S. District Court of the Southern District. She has taught at New York University and Columbia. However, the hearings promise to be full of pyrotechnics. The far-right wing of the Republican Party, after its embarassing defeat in the last presidential elections, has begun using Sotomayor as a picture girl of “lefty activism” from the bench. From Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh, the argument is put forward that she’s unfit to be a Supreme Court Justice because she uses her life story—and prides herself on it—to make her decisions. But could it be otherwise? No judge is a robot. To make a decision, one needs to apply one’s knowledge of the world to the findings. As for her activism, Justices Roberts, Alito, and Thomas are far more partisan than anyone currently seated on the court, interpreting the Constitution according to their views and against the views of the majority of the nation’s population.
And yet, I doubt that in the end the Republican base will be willing to alienate Latinos even more. As of late, this is the party of discord, with Dick Cheney becoming the leading exponent of security at all cost (endorsing even torture) to make America less vulnerable. That nearsightedness backfired during the second Bush years: the United States not only became more insular, it also betrayed the principles of liberty, equality, and justice for all under which it is based. Judge Sotomayor’s story is proof that America is still a land of dreams. Will the Republicans turn those dreams into a nightmare yet again?
Understandably, the Hispanic community is ecstatic about Judge Sotomayor’s nomination—and so am I. There’s finally an antidote against the stereotypes of Latino women as sheer body matter and turbulent emotions. Intelligence is seldom an ingredient invoked in U.S. popular culture when talking about Hispanics. Thus, she is now a folk hero. Posters of her smiley face are on display everywhere in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods from Spanish Harlem to East Los Angeles. A few days ago I received an MP3 version of the “Sotomayor Mambo,” to which I’ve been dancing ever since. Now I’m just waiting for the little action figure of La Jueza to go on sale, with Sotomayor looking like the Statue of Liberty, robed in the Puerto Rican flag, a crown of thorns on her head, a boom box instead of the torch high on her right hand, and the U.S. Constitution under her left arm.
Judge Sotomayor calls herself a “Nuyorican judge.” What a refreshing statement that is!
