I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.
Sonia SotomayorRead
When everyone at school is speaking one language, and a lot of your classmates' parents also speak it, and you go home and see that your community is different -there is a sense of shame attached to that. It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Embracing one's differences can be challenging, but it becomes valuable with maturity.
Sonia Sotomayor highlights the struggle of feeling ashamed of one's cultural background in a predominantly uniform environment. As one matures, the uniqueness of their identity transforms into a treasure rather than a source of shame, illustrating the importance of embracing diversity in a multicultural society.
Themes
DiversityIdentityShameAcceptanceGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on cultural understanding at a community event.
More from Sonia Sotomayor
All quotes →This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear.
Sonia SotomayorRead
I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.
Sonia SotomayorRead
The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.
Sonia SotomayorRead
As you discover what strength you can draw from your community in this world from which it stands apart, look outward as well as inward. Build bridges instead of walls.
Sonia SotomayorRead
There are uses to adversity, and they don't reveal themselves until tested. Whether it's serious illness, financial hardship, or the simple constraint of parents who speak limited English, difficulty can tap unexpected strengths.
Sonia SotomayorRead
Similar quotes
I'm an actor. Since I was a teenager, I have had to play different characters, negotiating the cultural expectations of a Pakistani family, Brit-Asian rudeboy culture, and a scholarship to private school. The fluidity of my own personal identity on any given day was further compounded by the changing labels assigned to Asians in general.
Riz AhmedRead
I think I'm ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian - that's home; my sensibility is Nigerian. But I like America, and I like that I can spend time in America.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieRead
The mark of a Scot of all classes [is that] he ... remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
I understand if everyone looking at me is seeing a Jew and seeing me as a kind of 'other.' But I can't be expected to see myself that way. That is, to me, Jewish is the normal way to be; it's not a type of being.
Nathan EnglanderRead
I have my own identity ... The whole Michael thing does drive me nuts sometimes because people won't leave it alone. He's bald, I have hair. He's almost 40, I'm 22. Seriously though, I wish people would let it be and let me just be Kobe.
Kobe BryantRead
Growing up, I knew I was different. But I didn't know what it meant to be Aboriginal. I just knew that I had a really big, extended family. I was taught nothing about who we were or where we came from.
Adam GoodesRead