Attorney Luz Herrera hopes that Sonia Sotomayor, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, can get across the message that the Latino experience is already 'a part of the fabric of U.S. society.'
I made a pilgrimage to Compton last week in search of wisdom, to a little storefront with bars over the windows and a liquor-grocer next door.
Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court nominee, set me off on this quest with her oft-repeated observation that "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male . . . "
Southern California is home, arguably, to more wise Latinas than any other place in the United States. The only Latina in Obama's cabinet (Labor Secretary Hilda Solis) is from here. And I personally know dozens more, starting with my mother, my wife, my mother-in-law and assorted professors, activists and sharp-minded stay-at-home moms.
But Judge Sotomayor was referring, specifically, to the law. So I thought I should go find a smart Latina attorney and ask her if she thought that was true. Does American jurisprudence look different from a Latina woman's eyes, and if so, what does she see in the United States that a wise "white male" does not? READ FULL STORY
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