When I was a child, I faced challenges such as: being diagnosed with a learning disability in reading comprehension, watching my great grandmother battle lung cancer and being turned down by the fire department. My ultimate goal in life is to become a firefighter and paramedic. Sonia Sotomayor penned her story in hopes that young people will see her struggles and know that happy endings are possible. She made history as the first Hispanic woman to become a supreme court justice.
Growing up I lived with both my parents who are still married to this day. My sister, Megan is two years younger than me and my brother Evan is eight years younger than me. Sonia's childhood and mine were completely different because she was born in 1954 whereas I was born in 1987, a thirty-three year age difference; however, we did have some things in common. Soon after I was born, my mother had to return to work as she was our family's main provider. My dad on the other hand had his own plumbing business in San Mateo, but work wasn't consistent. My uncle is also a plumber in San Mateo, which caused some confusion. With both my parents working I would go over to my grandmother and grandfather's house down the hall. We lived in the same apartment building which made things very convenient for my parents.
In April 1998, at ten years old, I lost my beloved great grandmother to lung cancer. I spent countless days with her from the time I was an infant. Americans today tend to take life for granted, anything can happen and we could be gone tomorrow. You don't know what the future holds until it's taken away from you. Sonia acknowledges in Chapter 5, that she just lost her father to alcohol. He had been drinking for years and couldn't stop. I can relate to Sonia's book a little bit because my great grandmother was a smoker and she smoked for years and decided to quit cold turkey when I was born. Going from a pack of cigarettes a day to cutting cold turkey must've been hard.