Would Sotomayor Be the First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice or Was It Cardozo?

Hispanic definitions that include persons of Portuguese origin

The U.S. Department of Transportation defines Hispanic to include, "persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central or South American, or others Spanish or Portuguese culture or origin, regardless of race."[14] This definition has been adopted by the Small Business Administration as well as many federal, state, and municipal agencies for the purposes of awarding government contracts to minority owned businesses.

California Public Contracts Code Section 2051 provides a definition of Hispanic that includes the Portuguese.

(c) "Minority," for purposes of this section, means a citizen or

lawful permanent resident of the United States who is an ethnic

person of color and who is: Black (a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa); Hispanic (a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish or Portuguese culture or origin regardless of race); Native American (an American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, or Native Hawaiian); Pacific-Asian (a person whose origins are from Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Samoa, Guam, or the United States Trust Territories of the Pacific or including the Northern Marianas); Asian-Indian (a person whose origins are from India,

Pakistan, or Bangladesh); or any other group of natural persons

identified as minorities in the respective project specifications of an awarding department or participating local agency.

Ladino

Clearly Justice Cardozo is ladino. We are being racist in making this classification. It appears that the majority of you want to exclude Benjamin Cardozo as Hispanic and Latino. Cardozo was Jewish but, he wasn't ashkenasi, he was sepharadic. Sepharadic Jews have origins from Spain. Portugal was part of the Kingdom of Leon but it was still oroginally a part of Spain. Cardozo was born in the US of spanish/portuguese heritage. He is excluded as Latino because he was Jewish. So as a result of our racism Cardozo is not hispanic/latino. So what was Cardozo? Cardozo linguistically was hispanic, he could speak Spanish. He also spoke Ladino, ancient Spanish written with the Hebrew Alphabet, it's the Sepharadic counterpart to Yiddish. Give credit where credit is due! Despite hardships, Benjamin Cardozo accomplished a lot in his day. Can't we remember him in a positive light?

Cardozo spoke LADINO you morons!!!

Cardozo, whose full name was Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, spoke ladino (also known as Djudeo-Espanyol, see Torah Tropical under "En Ladino se Dize" for a historical analysis or Google "Ladino") in his youth. Although many have asserted that Cardozo himself claimed not to follow the customs of his Iberian ancestors (Aviva Ben-Ur, "East Meets West: Sephardic Strangers and Kin," Sephardic Jews in America: A Diasporic History (New York: New York University Press, 2009), p. 86.), others say that this referred to not practicing Religion as did his ancestors.

His full family name includes "Mendes", "Cardoso" and "Seixas". Although many have tried to link these strictly to Portuguese origins, the reality is that the surname Cardoso (or Cardozo) is based on a region of Spain. The last name Mendes and its variants are shared by both Spaniards and Portuguese. However, Seixas is mostly Portuguese.

Many have also argued that because he did not consider himself a "Hispanic" that therefore he was not one. So I ask you all if an African American, Native American, Eskimo, Hispanic or other minority decide not to consider him/herself of his race or ethnicity does it make them anyless a member of that group? The flawed nature of this argument also confirms that the definition of "Hispanic" as applied today (it was not in use during the FDR administration) creates enigmas such as an individual from Venezuela with the last name Sadovnic, Levine or BenDayan to be labeled as "hispanic" in census taking procedures but yet they are actually the first generation of immigrants to be born in Venezuela from Russia, Holland and Morocco respectively.

So, basically according to the US Census definition of "Hispanic", "A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish Culture", Benjamin Cardozo is a "hispanic". Paolo of NY makes the mistake in assuming that 'Hispanic" is a race, it is not. Again, the flawed definition of "Hispanic" allows Europeans (Spaniards specifically) to be classified as "hispanic" although they are obviously Caucasian.

In the 1980's or 90's a local Miami based bank was sued by the Federal DOJ for not having an "Affirmative Action Quota" amount of Blacks in their employ. Throughout the proceedings, the bank presented numerous employees that had been classified as "hispanic" but were actually Black from Cuba or other Spanish speaking nations. The bank won the lawsuit.

Portuguese

Cardozo is a Portuguese jew, Period. He is caucasian. How the hell do some of you ignorant people compare portugal to spain. these are two totally different countries in every aspect(language, culture,etc...). they just happen to be neighboring countries just as france neighboring spain. your not going to call a french person hispanic are you? i think not.

hispanic justice

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

Hispanic

I don't know what "hispanic" DNA is. Is it a black guy from Santo Domingo? A blondie from Venezuela?

I guess I am the same tribe as Cardozo. My grandparents were Spanish-speaking Jews from Turkey. I don't have any slaves, I have not genocided anybody lately, I live in a mixed community, I married an imported pretty girl of an alien race, and I don't hate anybody... except politicians who try to provoke race hate or racial political correctness to advance their careers.

As for religion, atheism in our family goes back at least four generations. But sometimes we pretend in order to blend in with society... just like many "christians".

On the other hand, don't ask me about my crazy son and his fanatic Breslover cult...

Hispanic Judges

Portugal was once part of the Roman province of Hispania. Portugal was a part of Spain during the reign of Charles V and Phillip II. Charles was famous as saying that he spoke Spanish to God, Italian to ladies, French to his soldiers and German to his horse. Cardozo was Hispanic

Sotomayor

You fail to mention that the sect of Jews that Justice Benjamin Cardozo belonged to includes the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain under the Alhambra decree of 1492, or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497.

The Spanish were the first to bring salves from Afica to the Ameicas.

That and the legacy of the genocide commited by Cortez mean they are not better than white europeans in a historical view.

The FACT is this entire county is diven by race ot more exactly racial divisions and hatred.

sonia

first not so open gay justice yes.

Nothing but silliness

When we stop categorizing people by race, we will have taken the last, most important step, in creating a colorblind society. I recognize that a aignificant portion of citizens -- perhaps even the majority -- pay only lip service to the notion of colorblindness, because a leftist transformation requires that racial identification be stronger than commitment to the country. Regardless, we need to see things clearly, and that leads us to laugh at the obsession over these clearly subjective "firsts."