Today I attended a community/global awareness workshop entitled Changing America: Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The workshop first focused on the success of Sotomayor. For instance, she is the first Latina woman and the third woman in history ever to be on the Supreme Court. She grew up in the Bronx and attended Princeton as an undergraduate student. She later went on to attend Yale. In connection with all of her achievements, we discussed how success stories, such as Sotomayor’s, are the type of quintessential American stories that are attractive to an American audience. The fact that she is now on the Supreme Court has even lead some to focus on whether she maintains her femininity or if she has adopted masculine qualities because of her new status as Judge Sotomayer. Here’s what I learned: Because she is modest about her success and because she is very sweet when she’s not on the Supreme Court bench, many perceive that to be evidence of her femininity. But when she is on the bench, she obviously becomes tough and aggressive. Aggressiveness is often associated with masculinity. This goes to show that the varying gender roles of women in society have become a hot topic among many.
After discussing Sotomayor’s success, we delved into an even broader aspect of changes in America. For example, many people would assume that because a Latina is now on the Supreme Court and because we now have a black president, this might suggest that issues of racism have been resolved. However, I learned that this is totally not the case. In issues related to wages, education, and health, it turns out that apparently, Latinos, African Americans, as well as other minorities, are not faring any better than they did before the civil rights movement. To some extent, I already knew this was true, but I learned some more disturbing facts. For instance, Mexicans have currently replaced African Americans as the super-exploited racialized race in America. I also learned that 2,000,000 people were incarcerated in 2009. And apparently, mass incarceration began after the civil rights movement.
It’s a little sad to see that so many people have been mislead into thinking that America is moving in this upward direction, where everyone is treated with equal respect, when the reality is that it’s not. I learned that the reason why America is not progressing in a positive direction is because the civil rights movement failed to address economic inequality. I think this workshop was very interesting because it not only served as a means to discuss the importance of Sonia Sotomayor’s achievement, but also it was resourceful in conveying the dark side of America.