Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s newly released children’s book was inspired, she said, by her late mother Celina Báez Sotomayor’s ability to make “people feel good about themselves.”

After Baéz Sotomayor died of complications from cancer in 2021, people who attended her memorial services in New York, where she lived most of her life, and in Florida, where she retired, would tell Sotomayor the impact her mother, who worked as a nurse for many years, had in their lives.

“She was someone who woke up with a smile every day. She never complained, even when she was sick," Sotomayor told NBC News on Monday, which also marked the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month . " That act of giving to others, let the others feel not just important, but empowered to be themselves," she continued.

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