United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor talks about her journey from social housing in the Bronx to the bench of the United States Supreme Court. Her story begins with a precarious childhood: an alcoholic father, a devoted but overburdened mother, and a diagnosis of juvenile diabetes at age eight. The young Sotomayor soon determined she could only depend on herself—and then imagined a path to a different life. With only television characters as professional role models and a scant understanding of the work involved in becoming a lawyer, the determined Sotomayor pursued a dream that would sustain and elevate her from valedictorian of her high school class to an appointment on a federal district court before the age of forty.