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Quote by Sonia Sotomayor

“The tatters of old stories are tangled, weathered, muted by long-held silences that succeeded loud feuds, and sometimes no doubt re-dyed a more flattering color.”

Quote by Sonia Sotomayor

Book:My Beloved World
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My Beloved World

In this personal narrative, Justice Sonia Sotomayor shares her experiences growing up in the Bronx, her struggles with illness, her education, and her journey to becoming the first Hispanic woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. more

Author

Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the first Hispanic woman to serve in this role. Born on June 25, 1954, she has a background that includes a challenging upbringing in the South Bronx, New York, which fueled her passion for law. Sotomayor graduated from Princeton University and Yale Law School, and her career has been characterized by a strong commitment to public service and civil rights. She has served as a federal judge and has been a vocal advocate for equality and justice, leaving a lasting impact on a variety of legal issues. more

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“We arrive at 69th Street, turn the corner, and walk toward the entrance to the Hunter auditorium. The doors are open. Inside, two or three hundred Jews sit listening to the testimonials that commemorate their unspeakable history. These testimonials are the glue that binds. They remind and persuade. They heal and connect. Let people make sense of themselves. ... 'Come inside,' she says softly to me, thinking to do me a good turn. 'Come, you'll feel better.' I shake my head no. 'Being Jewish can't help me anymore,' I tell her.”

StorytellingOral History
Book:Fierce Attachments
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“To illustrate this claim, Benjamin relates a fable about a father who taught his sons the merits of hard work by fooling them into thinking that there was buried treasure in the vineyard by the house. The turning of soil in the vain search for gold results in the discovery of a real treasure: a wonderful crop of fruit. With the war came the severing of ‘the red thread of experience’ which had connected previous generations, as Benjamin puts it in ‘Sketched into Mobile Dust’. The ‘fragile human body’ that emerged from the trenches was mute, unable to narrate the ‘forcefield of destructive torrents and explosions’ that had engulfed it. Communicability was unsettled. It was as if the good and bountiful soil of the fable had become the sticky and destructive mud of the trenches, which would bear no fruit but only moulder as a graveyard. ‘Where do you hear words from the dying that last and that pass from one generation to the next like a precious ring?’ Benjamin asks.”

World War IModernityOral HistoryOral TraditionFrankfurt SchoolCommunicability
Book:The Storyteller: Tales out of Loneliness
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“She told me as I sat frightened like a mouse, just like you, 'A woman's body follows the moon. It is not still and hard like a man's. Her happiness and sadness take many forms; each day the brightness of her light and the mysterious depths of her shadows may change. A woman is close to the earth yet near to the heavens. She grows like the harvest; she becomes ripe like fruit. When, after many children, my son looks at you and asks where is the beauty of your youth, tell him these words. The body of your youth stays with your youth, and the body of the harvest, that is the body of your later years. Look at nature, how she dresses herself for every season. In the summer, she adorns herself as fields of rose and pink blooms, with fruits of peach, mango, and lemon, and as the season cools, she, too, dresses in darker hues of brown, maroon, and gold, and in the rains she is all gray mist and stormy blues. A woman must always be proud and look after herself.' Those are principles we follow forever, even us old ones.”

AgingWomanhoodOral HistoryAfrican Women
Book:Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter
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