Latino Americans

Latino Americans Timeline

1954 Jun 25 Sonia Sotomayor is Born
Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. Her father, Juan Sotomayor, had a third-grade education and did not speak English. He was from the Santurce area o...
1963 Sonia Sotomayor Diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes
Sonia was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age eight, and began taking daily insulin injections. Her father died of heart problems at age 42, when she was nine years old. After this, she...
1976 Jun Sonia Sotomayor Graduates from Princeton University
When Sotomayor entered Princeton University on a full scholarship, there were few women students and fewer Latinos (about 20). She knew only of the Bronx and Puerto Rico, and she later de...
1979 Jun Sonia Sotomayor Graduates from Yale Law School
Ms. Sotomayor was not alone; for many minority students who arrived at elite colleges, the first thing they wanted to study was their own backgrounds. “What we did on campus was to use it...
1979 Aug Sonia Sotomayor Joins the Manhattan District Attorney's Office
Ms. Sotomayor spent about five years as a prosecutor. Interviews with her colleagues and supervisors painted a portrait of a frightened rookie prosecutor who quickly gained the confidence...
1980 Sonia Sotomayor Joins the Board of Directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund was founded in 1972 as a non-profit organization by three lawyers, Jorge Batista, Victor Marrero, and Cesar A. Perales. It was inspired i...
1984 Apr 26 Sonia Sotomayor Joins New York Law Firm Pavia & Harcourt
In 1984, she entered private practice, joining the commercial litigation practice group of Pavia & Harcourt in Manhattan as an associate. One of 30 attorneys in the law firm, she speciali...
1988 Sonia Sotomayor Serves on the New York Campaign Finance Board
Sotomayor brings hands-on experience to the issue [of campaign finance] from her four years of experience on the New York City Campaign Finance Board, an independent, nonpartisan city age...
1992 Oct Sonia Sotomayor Begins Tenure as a Federal District Court Judge
New York is now officially in line to have the its first Hispanic woman as a Federal District Court judge. President Bush last week sent to the United States Senate the name of Sonia S...
1995 Mar 30 Sonia Sotomayor Rules in the High-Profile Case, Silverman v. Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee
Ruling from the bench, Sotomayor chided baseball owners, saying they had no right to unilaterally eliminate the 20-year-old system of free agents and salary arbitration while bargaining c...