The newest Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor is writing a memoir.
Sotomayor is working with a collaborator on her life story, from her childhood in the South Bronx to her appointment to the court last year.
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group said Monday that the book is not yet titled and has no release date set. The book will come out simultaneously in English and in Spanish.
Last month, Sotomayor returned to Bronx housing project where she spent part of her childhood, recalling how an unlikely encounter there with Robert F. Kennedy ignited her passion for public service.
The Bronx native fought back tears at the ceremony renaming the Bronxdale Houses after Sotomayor.
"Robert Kennedy was coming to visit our projects. I had never before looked down on red hair that bright," she said, adding that she went to the library to look him up. "I was captivated by his career. Through this chance encounter above the old community center, my interest in public service was awakened."
With many residents of the complex listening in the audience, and her mother wiping away tears in the front row, Sotomayor reflected on a childhood that was spent surrounded by family. Her cousins, also from the projects, would join her at the local fast food joint for hamburger-eating competitions, she said.
"I do remember each time I drive by that White Castle, the hours and hours of laughter that my cousins and I had as we roamed the grounds of this housing project, and played in the playgrounds, and screamed and fought and laughed and lived," she said.
Darryl Moore, a 42-year-old resident walking nearby with his 4-year-old daughter, said he hoped the new name — the Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses and Community Center — would be a reminder to his children that they could go far in life no matter where they grew up.
"It's good to know somebody that came from housing and went on to be successful. Hopefully with her name here some better things will happen," he said.
Sotomayor also visited her nearby elementary school, Blessed Sacrament.
Sotomayor assured the children that she was once a kid just like them. In those days, she aspired to be a lawyer, but never dreamed she'd get to the Supreme Court.
