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Sonia Sotomayor
Complex Legacyb. 1954
First Latina Supreme Court Justice (2009), of Puerto Rican descent, grew up in the South Bronx
Sonia Sotomayor (born 1954) is the first person of Puerto Rican descent to serve on the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, to Puerto Rican parents who migrated during the Great Migration, she graduated from Princeton University and Yale Law School.
On the Supreme Court, Sotomayor has been a significant voice on issues affecting Puerto Rico and U.S. territories. In United States v. Vaello Madero (2022), a case challenging the exclusion of SSI benefits from Puerto Rico residents, she wrote a powerful concurrence calling on the Court to overturn the Insular Cases, stating: "The Insular Cases' departure from the Constitution's text and history... was motivated by racial views and stereotypes that this Court has long since repudiated."
Her willingness to directly challenge the racist foundations of the Insular Cases from the bench of the Supreme Court represents a historic moment: a Puerto Rican justice confronting the legal framework that has maintained her people's colonial subjugation for over a century.