29 seconds ago 2009-11-10T07:46:45-08:00
Sonia Sotomayor's nomination is something of Spanish 101 for many -- including the senators questioning her.
Freshman Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he was talking with a constituent recently about the emotional impact of Sotomayor's nomination to be the high court's first Latina.
"I said it actually gives me goosebumps to think about the path that has brought you here today and ... what that means about America," Whitehouse told her. His constituent, Whitehouse said, replied: "'No, no, no -- you can't say goose bumps. You must say, piel de gallina,'" Whitehouse recalled.
Sotomayor laughed. So did the Spanish speakers in the audience.
I asked one of them, Norma Rodriguez of Connecticut, who's sitting right inside Sotomayor's VIP section, what that phrase meant. "Skin of a chicken, or goose bumps" she whispered.
Rodriguez said she didn't know Sotomayor personally but scored her special seat from the office of her senator, Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
She got tears in her eyes when I asked why she attended without actually knowing the nominee. As a Puerto Rican, she said, "You felt, for the longest time, shame."
And how does she feel now? "Great!"
-Laurie Kellman, AP reporter, Congress
