Sonia Sotomayor grew up in a housing project in New York City. The daughter of native Puerto Ricans, her father died when she was just 9 years old. He never learned English. Her mother, an orphan, raised Sotomayor and her brother in the Bronx, in a neighborhood plagued by poverty and violence. Nevertheless, Sotomayor was always at the top of her class. In 2009, she became the first Latina and the third woman to be confirmed as an associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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