“Everything I understood about how to treat people, how to make others feel important, how to show them they were important to me, came from her,” Sotomayor said. “That lesson is one that every child should know.… And every parent should realize: You set the example.”<\/p>\n

Sotomayor has long insisted that her books be published in both English and Spanish. She told The View’s<\/em> hosts<\/span> that nearly 30% of children in U.S. public schools speak Spanish, yet many lack access to literature in their first language.<\/p>\n

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<\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n“The purpose of the book [being published in English and Spanish] was to be inclusive, to make sure that many children in our country would always have access to books in their language,” she said. “Knowing a second language is important. Most of Europe does. Most Europeans speak more than one language.”<\/p>\n“Americans don’t tend to value [multilingualism],” she added. “It’s a lost art, and I think an important art to be multilingual. And so for me, making it a condition that my publisher has honored from my very first book, my memoir My Beloved World<\/em>, every book I publish comes out the same day in Spanish and English.”<\/p>\nHer goal, she said, is not only to <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >reach young readers<\/a> but also to give families the ability to read side-by-side in both languages.<\/p>\n“I know many parents and many kids who buy the English, buy the Spanish, and compare them,” Sotomayor explained.<\/p>\nThe requirements for being multilingual in America vary widely by state and school district. Federal data shows only about 20% to 30% of U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-education-sec-on-womens-school-sports-we-have-a-legal-responsibility-to-include-transgender-athletes\/\" title=\"Biden Education Sec On Women\u2019s School Sports: We Have a \u2018Legal Responsibility\u2019 to Include Transgender Athletes\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/despite-insistence-by-democrat-politicians-and-medical-elites-empirical-evidence-does-not-conclusively-show-that-masks-reduce-the-spread-of-covid\/\" title=\"Despite Insistence by Democrat Politicians and Medical Elites, Empirical Evidence DOES NOT Conclusively Show that Masks Reduce the Sp... of COVID\">high school<\/a> students<\/a> take a foreign language at all.<\/p>\nThe baseline that most colleges expect applicants to have completed in high school is at least two years of a single foreign language. Selective universities such as Harvard and Princeton, however, prefer or require three to four years.<\/p>\nHistorically, in Colonial America, fluency in Latin and Greek was valued and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.memoriapress.com\/articles\/classical-education-founding-fathers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">required<\/a> at top universities. When Founding Father Alexander Hamilton entered King’s College, now Columbia University, in 1774, he was expected to translate Cicero and Virgil in the original Latin and render passages of the Gospel of John from Greek into Latin. At Harvard University in the 1640s, students had to be able to read Cicero ex tempore and compose in Latin verse and prose just to be admitted.<\/p>\nOne in five K-12 students in the United States <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/04\/02\/learning-english-second-language-schools-resources?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">speaks a language<\/a> other than English at home, and about 10% are enrolled in English language development programs, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/tntp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">education advocacy group TNTP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/3795560\/trump-agenda-corners-democratic-leaders-states-rights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TRUMP’S AGENDA CORNERS DEMOCRATIC LEADERS TO EMBRACE STATES’ RIGHTS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n“The purpose of this book,” Sotomayor said, “is to teach children how to shine by making others feel important — just as my mother did.”<\/p>\nJust Shine<\/em> was released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script> <\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sotomayor promotes new book, says US undervalues multilingualism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2678,"featured_media":2484311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Sotomayor.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651,538],"tags":[33883,6759,62968,62967,11029],"class_list":["post-2484308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","category-washington-examiner","tag-childrens-book","tag-diversity","tag-language-promotion","tag-multilingualism","tag-sotomayor"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Sotomayor.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2484308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2484313,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2484308\/revisions\/2484313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2484311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2484308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2484308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2484308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}