On the National Journal’s new Ninth Justice blog yesterday Stuart Taylor passed on Brooklyn College history professor K.C. Johnson’s generally favorable comments on Sonia Sotomayor’s Princeton senior thesis, though Johnson did note a few discordant trendy leftist notes from the 1970s (such as her insistence on calling the U.S.Congress the “North American Congress” or the “mainland Congress”).
Perhaps more troubling, however, is something from a 1996 speech that Taylor quotes without comment:
Judge Sonia Sotomayor said in a 1996 speech at Princeton University’s Third World Center (now called the Carl A. Fields Center) that when she arrived at Princeton in 1972 as her high school’s valedictorian, “I found out that my Latina background had created difficulties in my writing that I needed to overcome. For example, in Spanish we do not have adjectives. A noun is described with a preposition…. My writing was stilted and overly complicated, my grammar and vocabulary skills weak.”
To catch up with her prep school classmates, Sotomayor recalled, “I spent one summer vacation reading children’s classics that I had missed in my prior education — books like Alice In Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn and Pride and Prejudice. My parents spoke Spanish; they didn’t know about these books. I spent two other summers teaching myself anew to write.”
She taught herself well, graduating summa cum laude and winning the prestigious Pyne Prize in her senior year. The prize was for academic excellence and — Judge Sotomayor said in the 1996 speech — “because of my work with Accion Puertorriquena, the Third World Center and other activities in which I participated, like the university’s Discipline Committee.”
Excuse me, but after all that self-taught grammar, etc., could 1976 Princeton summa Sonia Sotomayor really still believe, in 1996, that “in Spanish we do not have adjectives. A noun is described with a preposition”?
From a brief lesson on Spanish adjectives:
In Spanish, most adjectives change form, depending upon whether the word they modify is masculine or feminine. Notice the difference between “the tall boy” and “the tall girl.”
el chico alto
la chica alta
Adjectives also change form depending upon whether the word they modify is singular or plural. Notice the difference between “the tall boy” and “the tall boys” ; “the tall girl” and “the tall girls.”
el chico alto
los chicos altos
la chica alta
las chicas altas
Many common adjectives end in -o. These adjectives have four forms. The following words all mean “tall”:
alto
alta
altos
altas
The correct form of the adjective depends upon the noun it modifies. Is the noun masculine or feminine? Singular or plural?
libro rojo
red book
pluma roja
red pen
libros rojos
red books
plumas rojas
red pens
As it happens, there is a perfectly appropriate Spanish adjective to describe this “wise Latina’s” 1996 assertion that “in Spanish we do not have adjectives”: loco. [UPDATE: Actually, my Spanish speaking wife tells me that if I’d read what I posted above I’d know the correct form of the appropriate adjective is loca.]
Ah, yes, but not because it would describe Sotomayor — but the word for “assertion.” If you use “aserción,” it is indeed “loca.” If you use “aserto,” you’re back to “loco.” If you use “afirmación,” you’re back to “loca.”
Etc. ;-)
(Thankfully, English ditched gender WAAAAY back …!)
She went to Catholic school in the Bronx – English was still being spoken in the 1970’s in the Bronx – Catholic schools are sticklers for grammar and penmanship. So – was she also a ‘victim’ of affirmative action getting her into the Ivy League?
“Tonta” also works for Sotomayor, for thinking Spanish doesn’t have adjectives. And I’d like to see the preposition that describes a noun in Spanish.
Maybe “estúpida,” though rude, fits her better.
B.A. and M.A. in Spanish
“… children’s classics that I had missed in my prior education — books like Alice In Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn and Pride and Prejudice …”
Children‘s classics? Okay, Alice, but Twain and Austen?
Bill,
Yes, Twain and Austen are “children’s classics. To someone like Sotomayor, we are all children.
How about “Una mujer estupida”? Now there is an appropriate adjective.
Seriously? I’m a proofreader and copy editor, but I’m not so persnickety that I don’t understand what she meant to say is that adjectives are often used differently in Spanish, and this created a linguistic challenge–which she worked hard to overcome. I also work for a children’s publisher, and can assure you that, yes, it’s mostly kids and teens reading Huck Finn and Austen. This speech of hers should be inspiring, not the target of your ire. You people are really reaching to find avenues for your misdirected aggression here.
If she was born and raised in NY, she went to English-speaking school, correct? So she learned grammar in English, not Spanish. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that, although she probably spoke mostly Spanish at home, English was the language she learned best… probably not taking an actual Spanish class until late Jr High or High school. Just because you can speak your parent’s language fluently, doesn’t mean you know all it’s rules of grammar. I’d bet the judge would probably “thinks” in English. If she did have poor grammar skills when she arrived at Princeton it wasn’t because of her Latina heritage.
There’s an unstated language policy based on language status and Spanish is rated low, or lower than (English, French, and so on.) Average educated particulars may miss language rules, but no ‘lettered’ JUDGE should be excused, not to say surprisingly and especially when Spanish is around home and the community !!! I’d not offend pero qué vergüenza!!