Would Sotomayor really be the first Supreme Court Latino?
Some say that Justice Benjamin Cardozo, reportedly of Portuguese descent, beat her to it in the 1930s. The debate renews old questions about the labels 'Latino' and 'Hispanic.'
By Antonio Olivo
May 31, 2009

The term was coined in Chicago, Puente said. Although initially used mainly on the East Coast, it gained enough traction elsewhere in the country during the 1990s to be included along with "Hispanic" in 2000 census questions.

But, because the Census Bureau does not confirm respondents' heritage, anyone can say they're Hispanic/Latino.
"It really depends on how you feel about yourself," said Angelo Falcon, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy in New York.

FOR THE RECORD First Hispanic justice: An article in Sunday's Section A about Sonia Sotomayor and former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo incorrectly used, in the headline and the first three paragraphs, the term Latino. The article referred to a semantic debate over whether Sotomayor was the first Hispanic to be nominated to the Supreme Court and not Cardozo.

The article should have said that advocacy groups praised Sotomayor, a New-York born Puerto Rican, as the first Hispanic, which prompted political opponents to argue that Cardozo's Portuguese heritage qualified him as the first Hispanic.

First Hispanic justice: An article in the May 31 Section A about Sonia Sotomayor and former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo incorrectly used, in the headline and the first three paragraphs, the term Latino. The article referred to a semantic debate over whether Sotomayor was the first Hispanic to be nominated to the Supreme Court and not Cardozo. The article should have said that advocacy groups praised Sotomayor, a New-York born Puerto Rican, as the first Hispanic, which prompted political opponents to argue that Cardozo's Portuguese heritage qualified him as the first Hispanic.
And that brings the issue back to Cardozo. When he was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1932, the New York-born justice was embraced by the Jewish community there as a son of Sephardic Jews, which is how his parents identified themselves.

Today, he might have recognized the political advantages of identifying himself with the nation's fastest-growing demographic group, Passel said.

"We don't know because he's not alive to tell us," he said.

Nelson de Castro, the Portuguese consul general in Chicago, said that "in the context of the United States," most descendants of Portuguese immigrants "see themselves as Hispanic."

But he said the Portuguese in general might see it differently. "First and foremost," he said, "the Portuguese identify themselves as European."

aolivo@tribune.com

In addition, from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Cardozo#The_question_of_Cardozo.27s_ethnicity, we have this: The question of Cardozo's ethnicity

Cardozo was the second Jew, after Louis Brandeis, to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Although Cardozo was a member of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community, there has been recent discussion as to whether Cardozo should be considered the 'first Hispanic justice,' a notion which is disputed.[15][16][17] Among them, Cardozo-biographer Kaufman questioned the usage of the term "Hispanic" in the justice's lifetime, stating: "Well, I think he regarded himself as a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula.”[18]
It has also been asserted that Cardozo himself "confessed in 1937 that his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions".[19] Both the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the Hispanic National Bar Association consider Sonia Sotomayor, if confirmed, will be the first unequivocally Hispanic justice. [15][18]
In Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings on July 14th 2009, she expressed her respect for Cardozo's jurisprudence.