Brenda Castaneda

ENG 112
February 2, 2015
RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
Sonia Sotomayor has long been an influential voice in the ongoing discussion
of representation of minorities and women within the justice system. Even before
being nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009 as the first Latina Supreme
Court Justice in this nations history, she advocated for a more prominent presence
of justices of color and of the female gender. In 2001, the symposium Raising the
Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation
took place in the University of California Berkeley, where Sotomayor was invited to
address the student body in the form of the Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture.
The then appeals court judge discussed her background as a Latina and as a
woman. Throughout her speech, her effective and masterful use of various appeals,
evidence, and literary devices, Judge Sotomayor upholds her claim while many
strides have been taken to integrate the Judiciary, both racially and gender-wise,
there is still much to be done in order for it to truly receive a balanced
representation of the population of the United States.
The judge established credibility with her audience, law students at the
University of California Berkeley, in many ways. When beginning her discourse on
how her Puerto Rican background affected her experiences on the bench, she
shares her experiences with various different parts of her cultural heritage. She
recalls with her audience the meals she shared with her family and the, at times,
perplexing combinations only a true Newyorkrican could find appealing. She also

shares memories of the loud familial gatherings of her childhood, filled with music
and bingo and domino games. The Judge concludes by establishing that true Latin
identity is not determined by the customs or traditions of one singular LatinAmerican country. Rather, Sotomayor explains, what makes her and any other
woman a Latina is the way [she] love[s] and the way [she] live[s] her life. She also
earns the trust of her listeners by establishing her academic credibility. By
demonstrating that she studied in prestigious, respected universities, she further
supports her various claims. Furthermore, by using her personal accomplishments
and professional experiences as a Latina judge in the American justice system, she
deems her herself a worthy and educated source of information and opinion on the
topic of Latino and women voices in the Judiciary. She also unifies herself with her
audience, forming a cohesive group of present and future voices of the justice
system, urging all of them to take notice on the imbalance of representation in their
field of work. Various times, Judge Sotomayor will use the pronoun we, including
herself in those who need to act towards change in the courts of the United States.
In her concluding statements, We, I mean all of us in this room she ends in a
feeling of cooperation and encouragement for all.
2nd PARAGRAPH: logos
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Facts
More of her academic background
Connections to her personally
Colleagues observations: Cedarbaum
Deductive and inductive reasoning

3rd PARAGRAPH: pathos

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Magical Latina soul

Wise Latina woman
Her childhood
Discrimination

4th PARAGRAPH: devices

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Rhetorical questions
Vocab spanish, magical etc.
Allusions to history
Call to action
Parallelism

Tina Andre
The organization of your paper so far is good, especially starting out with the ethos.
I really like to see the pathos paragraph, partly because certain parts in the speech
could be brought up in that paragraph
I enjoy learning who Sonia Sotomayor is and what she is trying to do.
Im curious about what devices youre going to talk about in the paper.
Nothing else so far seems wrong with your paper. Good Job