Posted by David Bernstein: Would Sotomayor be the First Justice Not to Have English as Her Native Language?: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_05-2009_07_11.shtml#1247103985
[1]Justice Ginsburg thinks she would be . Given that Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, I assume she means that Sotomayor would be the first Justice whose grew up in a primarily non-English speaking household. I'm not sure about this biographical detail regarding Sotomayor, but I doubt she'd be the first. Justice Brandeis may be one earlier example. I'm not sure what language was primarily spoken in the Brandeis household, but I would guess German, based on the following information: Brandeis's parents were German-speaking immigrants; Brandeis attended a German-language elementary school, the "German and English Academy;" the school was co-founded by his father, suggesting that his father had great fondness for the German language and culture; and Brandeis spent two of his teenage years studying at in Germany. It's also possible that Arthur Goldberg's parents, immigrants from a shtetl in Ukraine, spoke Yiddish at home. I can't think of any other examples offhand, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. References Visible links 1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp Hidden links: 2. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/volokh/posts/1247103985.html _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
