By: Alex Clift

Among the videos Judge Sonia Sotomayor submitted as background to the Senate Judiciary Committee for her Supreme Court nomination was a clip of her 2007 induction to Urban Health Plan (UHP) health center’s Wall of Fame.  In her acceptance speech (now posted on the New York Times Website), Judge Sotomayor speaks passionately about her relationship with UHP Founder Dr. Richard Izquierdo and the health center:

“This is a very special place. This urban [health] center…what you do every day, is give us hope. I hope that all of you understand how extraordinary you are, how impressive your work is, and how much of a difference you make in so many people’s lives.”

Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sotomayor, the daughter of a nurse, is close friend of UHP health center and a former patient of Dr. Izquierdo.   Judge Sotomayor is the first female Puerto Rican federal court judge. If her nomination to the US Supreme Court is confirmed, she would replace Chief Justice Souter on the bench as the court’s first Hispanic justice and its third female justice.

“I lived in the Bronxdale projects, but this was the center of the universe for me. Who I have become is what this place gave me… It is a part of my very core, the center of my being.”

– Judge Sonia Sotomayor