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Professor Manuel Hernández Essays Collection Email: mannyh32@puertoricans.com http://www.editorialplazamayor.com/autores/manuel_hernandez.htm For additional: HC-O1, Box 8552, Luquillo, Puerto Rico 00773 or e-mail. mannyh32@puertoricans.com New Book Presentation - The Birth of a Rican - By Manuel Hernandez-Carmona

Latino/a Literature Seminars

Manuel Hernandez has given seminars on how to integrate Latino/a Literature in the English Classroom in cities across the United States, Puerto Rico and Mexico. He is willing to visit your school, community center, corporation and institution and share his view on this new literature. The literature can serve as a bridge for further literary analysis and can help students improve their scores on city, national and state testing requirements.
(Click here for curriculum vitae)

Sonia Sotomayor: A True Pioneer of History
By Manuel Hernandez-Carmona copyright
mannyh32@puertoricans.com

In spite of the social, cultural and economic circumstances faced by the pioneers of the Puerto Rican migration in the early and mid-twentieth century, today they have become a legitimate and bona fide component of American society. The United States based Puerto Ricans have made a name for themselves in politics, television, film-making, music, education, science, literature and in the American judicial system. During the last twenty years, their contributions have been recognized and documented extensively by American industries and institutions and in essence have become true pioneers of history.
According to the 2000 United States Census statistics, there were 3.5 million people of Puerto Rican origin living in the United States mainland. In 2009, those numbers are history and projections place them above the 4 million milestone. Puerto Ricans who migrated to the United States before, during and years after World War II, and those who were born and grew up in the United States have come out of the so-called melting pot and have become an important force developing a voice of their own. The contributions of Puerto Ricans to the current political and social growth of the development of the United States are vast and unquestionable.
On May 26th, 2009, another Puerto Rican received the highest opportunity to contribute to the social, historical and political outreach of the United States. Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican brought up by a single mother from The Bronx was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Obama. Sotomayor was born in and grew up in the Bronx Borough during its toughest times in the 1960's and 1970's. Her father a Puerto Rican migrant from Santurce died when Sonia was merely a nine year old girl leaving Sonia's mother with the responsibility of bringing up a family by herself. Young Sonia and her brother took advantage of the educational opportunities presented to her, and she was accepted and graduated from Princeton University and attended Harvard Law School.
In her 30 year career span, she has had the opportunity to work at all levels of the judicial system. She is labeled by critics as a political centrist. As a matter of fact, it was President Bush who appointed her a district judge and President Clinton who elevated her to her current judicial responsibilities. We are still pending Senate hearings and other pre-appointment proceedings, but she is on her way to reach further judicial heights en route to become the first Hispanic/Latino in the United States Supreme Court. Because her mother dearly valued education as the key to the future, Sotomayor today is on the verge of becoming a true pioneer of history.

Manuel Hernandez, a contributing columnist to HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com), lives in Puerto Rico where he teaches school. He has a B.A. and MA Teaching English. He is candidate for a PhD. He has just published a textbook titled, Latino/a Literature in The English Classroom (Editorial Plaza Mayor, 2003). For more information, e-mail him at mannyh32@puertoricans.com For school orders, go to www.editorialplazamayor.com for more information or call 787-764-0455 For a complete bibliography: email me at mannyh32@puertoricans.com