sotomayor's "my beloved world." booktv covered with just a sotomayor where chick talks about her book.

[applause] >> greetings, welcome. [applause] greetings, welcome to the progressive form. i'm with valens donder of the progressive form america's only civic speaker organization expressly does it -- dedicated to -- in the largest speaker organization in texas. [applause] we are excited tonight to present supreme court justice sonia sotomayor launching her first book a memoir called "my beloved world." please turn off your cell phones photography or video taping is not allowed.

the beautiful flowers on stage or flowers that were found in lovely puerto rico. [applause] puerto rico just a sotomayor's culture and family. thank you c-span booktv to be here in houston texas at the wharton center. welcome to you and her friends across the country joining us on television. thank you for joining us. [applause] i'm excited to roll that anise parker and first lady kathy hubbard are with us tonight. [applause]

to anise parker is one of my heroes and one of my favorite people and a terrific mayor. please stand mayor parker and first lady kathy hubbard. [applause] you can see past presentations of the progressive form on our web site great minds such as jane goodall bill moyers and supreme court justice john paul stephens. go to our web site at progressive form houston.org. that's progressive form houston.org. we are pleased to give up to every attendee tonight. you show your ticket at the dissuasion table in the grand foyer. additional books are also on

sale in the grand foyer by the bookshop. after just a sotomayor's presentation she will join you for for a q&a. i should save supreme court rules don't allow us to discuss court cases of the past, present or future but we will fill deeply into the fascinating story. just a sotomayor will sign books in the grand foyer were. i cried when i read "my beloved world" and i also laughed. it is a good book. i believe it will be more than a bestseller. it will become a classic american success story a required reading in high schools and colleges. i'm amazed that the e-mails we have been getting from students who filled with exclamation points. young people connect with sonia sotomayor. in her book i was especially

impressed by the scene of sonia and her brother jr. as kids doing their homework with her mother who was also doing hers, studying to become a registered nurse, two generations encouraging each other. to me, just a sotomayor's american success story for place the world myth. her stories about individual determination but it's also about community, family and negotiating culture boundaries. it's about overcoming poverty and chronic disease. it's about insecurity, self-discovery and the joys of growing an authentic person. it's about success in america as it really is.

sonia sotomayor is the first hispanic in third woman to serve on the u.s. supreme court. she was born in the bronx and raised in a public housing project. her parents moved from puerto rico to new york city during world war ii. her father became a factory worker and her mother joined the women's auxiliary corps. sonia sotomayor was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of seven and her father died when she was nine. she and her younger brother were raised by a single mother and her brother is now a doctor. sonia sotomayor graduated as belichick taurine of her high school last. she graduated from princeton university; body receiving the highest price for an undergraduate. in law school she was the editor gail livejournal. she could have become a highly paid lawyer but she went right

into public service, becoming an assistant district attorney serving the people of new york. she served in almost all levels of the judicial system including private legal practice as well as years and federal -- in 2009 president barack obama nominated in the u.s. senate confirms sonia sotomayor is the 111th justice of the u.s. supreme court. i give you sonia sotomayor. [applause] [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> after i got to washington in 2009 i send the full project -- to everywhere in this large state and i've been repeatedly invited to visit. when you get a new job you are a little busy so i haven't been able to calm but it's a tribute to the warmth of the people i've met that has been confirmed in the few hours that i'd been here already.

this is the third city on my tour. i was first in washington, my new home. i went back to the home of my heart over the weekend. as you saw on television that i was back and forth a lot. [laughter] and this is my first trip outside who. i'm delighted that this is my first trip to texas and that i'm here. [applause] i wanted to visit more than one city and i am going to often but i can't visit every place i want to. i still have a day job and i only have a few days to promote my book but i made a promise on television so you can hold me to

it, i will be back to visit other cities in texas. [applause] where are you and suzanne sitting? they are right there. you are part of the reason that i could, and it was randall and suzanne morton the founders of the progressive forum pooh-pooh this visit together for me. they have extended everyone think courtesy to me. i even had -- at dinner tonight. [applause] i am surrounded by flowers some of which i describe in the book. part of my beloved world in puerto rico.

so, i'm here to talk to you about my book and about what my book is about and when i started to write it was there was one thing i wanted to accomplish. when you write a memoir, and i have read many of them through my life, you sometimes come away asking the question, asking yourself the question, did i learn anything new about that person? regrettably often i've read books and memoirs or autobiographies and really didn't learn much that i didn't already know. i didn't want to write that kind of book. i wanted to write something different, something where at the end of that a raider could come away and say to themselves, i think i know her will. book -d

world" intended in part to do is let you see my heart and soul and in doing that i hope to show you who i was there was the purpose for doing that. and the purpose is captured in one part of my book which will is probably my favorite passage. i will read it to you because it summarizes one important reasons that i wrote this book. it's on page 178 and it reads, when a young person, even a gifted one, grows up to without

positive living examples of what she may aspire to be with her lawyer scientist artist or leader and in the realm of their goals remain abstract. such models and folks around the news however inspiring were revered are ultimately too remote to be true but let alone influential. a role model in the flesh provides more than an inspiration. his or her very purpose is confirmation of possibilities one might have saying yes someone like me can do this. it was my hope that every child and every adult to read this book in the end say will what i

said during my nomination speech. yes, she's an ordinary person just like me and it's that ordinary person can do it, so can i do. that's what i subscribe. [applause] that's what i try to do in the story of this book, to tell you my experiences and my feelings. as i perceive them at the time and he will find me talking in the child and then give you the reflection of the adult. it wasn't so easy to do, to put

myself back in time and to tell you what i was feeling but i did it for a purpose and that purpose was to tell you what i've learned from those experiences. and in the process will you have to hope that every single person in this room who has experienced even one of the difficulties i have faced in life and those difficulties are as diverse as growing up in poverty, having a chronic disease and its surprising how many people suffer from chronic disease and live their lives never talking about it, to being a child raised by a single parent, to facing discrimination and whether it's about my ethnicity or my gender or it's about my

background, we each feel the sting of it in some way. but to simply being afraid which i think most people who are hearing. we all create a bravado about we are okay. it's easy to say but hard to do. and so i talk about those feelings and as ordinary a way as i can and in an open or away as i could in order to i hope give people courage to talk about and rethink their own experiences. there was a second purpose to this book because you see, the books that i love are the books that i've read and make me think

on different levels that deliver more than one message because there is a beauty i think in reading of book and discovering new things. you will learn about how i use books after my father's death to escape the unhappiness in my home. they became who a rocketship who thought of that unhappiness with the rocketship that landed me on far universes of the world when i found fiction to understanding places that i thought i was never -- i nap gracefully have the wherewithal to do it but i found africa and places that i

had heard about on television but never imagine knowing and i learned about them in books. i hope that every child in this audience and annie child -- understands that television is wonderful but words paid pictures and a way that nothing else can. i'm going to read one part of my t will prove myibes a scene in point for everyone in this room. happen but that also will because i think these passages describe my life in a way that i hope paints a picture for you paints a picture of my without having a photograph. grandmother i'm reading from page 15 of my book. and it reads

me to come with her to buy some chicken. i was the only one who ever went with her birth. i loved her totally and without reservation will and it was a safe haven for my storms at home. i have come to believe in order to thrive a child must have at least one adult in her life who shows her unconditional love and respect. i was determined to throw up just like her to the age for the same exuberant gray swoope. not that we both much alike. she had very dark eyes, darker than mine and along the face

with a pointed nose framed by long straight hair, nothing like my nose in short cur recognizinh other up. and enjoy a bond beyond explanation and deep emotional resonance that sometimes -- we were so much alike in fact the people called me little mercedes which was the source of ray pride for me. but she also had a special connection with her. even nelson never wanted to go on saturday mornings. it wasn't just the chicken.

they had baby goes and pence pigeons and ducks and rabbits in cages stacked up against the long wall. the cages were stacked so high that she would climb up a ladder and wheels to see into the top rows. the purse would be squawking and talking and screaming. there were feathers in the air sticking to the wet floor which was which was slippery when they closed it down. and there were there were chickens with mean eyes watching you. it's on my favorite parts of the book. at the end of my confirmation process everybody learns about my mother and she is someone

no one has talked about your grandmother. she really was the most important person in my life. almost everybody in there some unfortunate people who don't ever get to know their grandmothers or theirr grandfathers but those who doant know what special kind of love it is. grandparents are so special. that brings me to critically a critically important part of this book. during the confirmation

process now i will tell youan the following. i always upset my marshals when i do this i'm going to the audience i'm sorry i can't go up there you're too far up there i was here earlier this afternoon and i licked out your i said this is lovely andly intimate. wow is this big.wow is i can't go to you and i won't go as far back as i want many of you could still see me. but i find that if i walk among you i proof my family right. they used to call me hot tech because i could never sit still. people are asking me about my father and where he came from

and what his family was like i really didn't have much to tell them. they were asking me a lot about that about my own mother t and they were basic parts of her story that i knew.parts of h but there was a lot i couldn't answer. some of the information that came out during the confirmation hearing. proved to be wrong in fact i did not do not know where my father was born. i thought it was from the town he had left from.d left it turns out that wasn't true. and i will take one of the things that surprised me to no end and pleased me was knowledge of that.end

the people that were helping me do the research on my family in puerto rico they went to the local priest to look at our family's birth records. the priest greeted them and said to the person who was acting for me i knew she would end up here. we were just waiting. he pulled out the book with the birth certificate of my father and his sibling. it's a very touching moment a very touching moment a second thing happened during mye seco confirmation hearing. every morning before i went to the white house or to the senate i would call my mother

just to hear her voice. i don't talked talk to my mother every day. i broke her of that habit a long time ago. y. left mac. one night i forgot to call her after she have menu; every day. and she was frantic. i no i call her. every week i talked to her once a week. and sometimes more. but i try to do iter spontaneously says she doesn't worry as much. another life management lesson.s wet but i found myself calling me every moment during the stressful time because hearing her voice gave me comfort.e

and i realized that as much as i knew her as much as we have gone through life together that i really had it spent that much time talking to her about her life and her feelings. we talked a lot about my feelings. we are all self absorbed. but not enough about her feelings. one of the things that i started with was to ask her question a question that i have never asked her before. were you ever in love with daddy. by the time i came around a few years later my father have become such an alcoholic that

their life was filled with unhappiness. one of the greatest gifts of writing this book was finding out about father i never knew. in the love story i never knew about between him and my mom. i'm in a review just a piece of my book because of all of the chapters in this book. the one i love the most is chapter seven. it wasn't until i began to write this book nearly 50 years after the events of that sad year my dad said that i came to a true understanding of my mother's grief for most

of my life the sense of my father and my relationship was confined by the narrowof my aperture for which i watch them as a child. that sense was frozen in time when my father died my theory of guilt was hardly more sophisticated than the psychiatric help at 5 cents a pop. its silence in conversation among the adults. that might have may have caused me to question what i thought. as we grew junior and i would speak more openly to each other.rother although he was six when poppy died. he has no memories of my father or of the time before his death.

i came to assume that the intensity of my mother's griefef implied some form of clinical depression that was never treated but that somehow resolves itself.clinic i've never before in all of these years ask that very intelligence woman for her own version of events i would be startled by what i uncovered and even grateful this was a happier version of my father and my mother than i ever knew. c my parents relationship was richer and more complex than a child could imagine in the stories that come to light are all the more precious to me for having been captured as my

mother's that my mary is fading faster with age. sometime the people closest toaa us are those that we know the least. where should i begin.eginning the rest of this chapter is that story. i hope you will read it to find the jury i do. -- the joy i do. i passed on the greatest lesson of this book to every person in this auditorium who has a living parent, grandparent aunt or uncle anyone who is alive that has a memory of your family's history do what it took me 55

years to get to.y do w sit down and talk to them re- listen to their stories with an open mind and learn aboutut yourself. i know because i did. you hear the stories at the sunday table or when you're visiting a christmas the idea was very famous in the latinama culture. it's the exclamation point of here we go again. we all do it. how often had you heard the story and you think you know it. you think they understand the reasons behind the why. behin

i'm giving you a free lesson don't do what i do. don't wait until they are not here any longer do it whenever you have the chance. i took the time during the busiest part of my life that i ever had becoming a supreme court justice. the and i did it for personal reason the personal reason was because i wanted to hold on to sonia sotomayor. i've been thrust on a world stage in my life was moving and has been moving at an incredible pace what happens i think it's all of us is that we forget how we got places.

we think sometimes it just happened or we forget to be grateful. i do not want to forget. this book is my memory. the day i get conceited my family and friends will pickhe i up the book and have me over the have with it. and tell me to remember. but it is also a tribute to that moment that i took very acted life that i created. but also my spare vacation time in the summer. i have taken a week off here and there. i even went to the beach for a week last summer.

every day my last three summers i treated this book like a job. i got up early in the morning by 9:00 i was at my desk i was either talking into a dictaphone or writing or editing five days a week. if you don't treat a task as a job it doesn't get done. wil but the benefit was that i learned about my family. learn about yours. take the time no matter how busy you are make the time and talk to those you love. you will find out the most incredible things. i assure you.

i want to give you some time for questions. wait a long talk before i said to him mr. when i ask you the question. even every time you the truth. i have some more walking to do. i did not realize all of the people are going to be up there. but i want the people down here to see me a little bit. once you get nominated for the supreme court every eye in the world is on you. i'm not exaggerating. people from around the world wod have come to the united states to tell me that they are

watching my nomination to be tv. on people tell me that they read our cases and follow the issues the court is looking at. everything you do is under constant scrutiny. then i write a book and i shown you the inside of my heart my soul.hen a i think of lost everything. i hope it has and worthwhile. [applause]. i started by talking to you about how will keep things a secret.

and i started my book and i've been asked by many why did you start with a chapter about that diagnosis of your disease. i started by saying to all of you that i know that much of you and many of us hide the sad things in our life it wasn't easy to talk about an alcoholic father. it wasn't easy to talk about the terror i felt when my didse meet -- disease was diagnosed. and it wasn't easy to talk to people about how it's an ever present part of my life. so is asthma for many people, so is problems with drug addicts and your family.

it was nelson. we were inseparable as children.ble you will see pictures in this book that almost every picture as a child i meant. i'm in. nelson is right next to me. nelson died of aids before he was 30. i was with him the night before he died many of the weeks i reach you a passage his sister sent me this past week and at an event in newbecas york and said to me sonja

inky. -- thank you. very few people remember who nelson was. now here i am back to life.t bat and in his story he might even teach kids some goods. a few paragraphs from it. if i try to understand in my heart how it could happen that two children so closely matched could meet such different fates i enter a sub subterranean world of nightmares. the panic when nelson's hand slipped your mind. the reason seems a better defense against the pain. let me understand in the

logical way what made the difference between two children who began almost as twins inseparable in our own eyes virtually identical., virta he was smarter he have the father i wish for. and we shared the special blessing. why did i endure even thrive when he failed consumed by the same dangers that have surrounded me. some of it can be laid in the door the culture that pushes boys out into the street while protecting girls but there is more.'s nelson had mentioned the day at the hospital the one thing i have call it what you like.

discipline, determination, perseverance the force of willf even apart from him saying so i knew that it have made all the difference in my life if only i could bottle it i would share it with every kid in america. will, you know what that's about it's about being stubborn. every time your parents tell you not to be stubborn look at them and say that justice is said it was a good thing. were not dealt easy hands in life. none of us are. plenty of friends who proven

that to me in life.. money doesn't buy happiness.ve it's a very true adage. life throws each of us a whole lot of bad hands and if you let them knock you down. that life is really unhappy. all of the people that are in my world. they organized themselves to help me be nominated to thelp supreme court. something i will be eternally grateful to. many of them were from here in texas. people helped in saint i don't know what's really important. not being so been so proud and arrogant that you know it a all.to d

i hope i would encourage more people to do that moreease. frequently. in the end is not giving up. it's about trying and retrying and train again. to get up and try again. even if you don't reach the moon when you reach for it. you can land on an asteroid. but unless you try you cannot achieve anything. you cannot succeed in life

without trying.is is this is a book about trying. and sometimes failing. but having arrived at a life in the end the book with this. a life in which i can say i'm truly blessed. thank you for sharing. [applause]. what you spin the audience so i can have a drink of water.

while done. when you tell people where the questions came from.>> t so some of these belong to people in the audience. you have done me a lot of good today. your great advisor think you. i'm stronger also. the title of your book my beloved world is from a poem in your book. what were your reflections in choosing that title. there is a line that talks about returning to my beloved world.

puerto rico is an important slice of them. i'm introducing the world to the things i love. despite descriptions of some very sad things and difficult times and some challenges. the book is about love.ngthen even in their challenge. the title just seemed right. if you've never visited puerto rico it's a great place to goo visit. when september 11 came all of

us one of them journalist who is interviewing a woman from the midwest they said thosetc people are just like us. one that the and all of the unhappiness it did matter what background was there or wherend it was from.

when i was writing this book that i want to people i doubt my experience of puerto rican and new in new york is identical to the experience of mexicans and texas. or are identical to the other ones. we share so many commonalities. we share so much more than we are different.i in describing my beloved world and the descriptive ways that i tried to accomplish the people would appreciate those commonalities.

that they would come away with their own lives even though the details might be different. >> you are famous for a phrase that came up in your confirmation hearing wise latina woman. when i heard that i thought there is more to the story.herew i thought there was more behind it. what can you share with us. there had been many misunderstandings about that phrase in my use of it in the article that i wrote. and what people didn't appreciate is where i came from. f where i came from was being a person who sometimes felt looked down upon by the larger

society. people talk about latinos generally in terms like illegal aliens. some are undocumented.like but it sound like real drug addicts. w there are different kinds of crime. and why it's different than the kinds of negative images that people portray on latinos in the united states.portray i have always wanted to convey to latino kids that we should take enormous pride in our

culture. i very proud american with a latino heart and soul. i did not had to apologize to anybody for being that or for any thing. [applause]. it was not used to suggest superiority it was to suggest something completely different when you don't feel equal someone has to remind you sometime that you are.

i think it is a phrase that offended some. they chose to do. its message was born from a sense of pride in knowing that i come from a very rich background and a very rich culture second to none not superior to any. that's what i hope will come out of people reading this book. moving from the bronx to princeton university. you described as becoming a stranger and strange lands. he discovered ways of itfrom o tapped into to new cultural worlds.

what i have done and described in my book. is i had stayed connected to people from the latino community. i had advocated for some of the needs of latinos. it's given me a sense of comfort and security in my life.we don will gravitate to that in which we grew up in. because it's a familiar. in the familiar security and confidence building. but i'm very careful to give a more broader lesson in my book to talk about the needs to insulate yourself within the community but to simply use it as a springboard into these

larger world. their but then go out and explore. that's what they're there for. to support you if you fall down.e, to to pick you up and push you out again. and let you try new things.d no i talk in those terms because i don't believe in isolation every community should try to go out into the world and embrace it all. whether it's going to a place like princeton which was completely alien to me to making friends for this. it's too convenient did not reach out and make friends that are different than you. but convenience does not help you grow. you have to take the risk of

meeting new people to learn new things. and importantly and so taking the time to embrace who you are but at the same time embrace others is not that easy for a lot of people. i really want to that message to come through in the book. i think it started in high school when you weren't sure hig sought out the smartest kid in class. and ask her how to study. >> mentors are the most important thing in one's life. the first passage i wrote about it was a federal judge

of the u.s. district court of the second circuit in new york. we later became colleagues but has it was the first really successful latino that i had encountered what i was in law school. is talking about how important he was because he was a role model of what i might be able to do and achieve i intuitively be understood. i described this in the book. who gave out gold scars -- gold starts when you got a good grade. i couldn't figure out how to do it. i've been in school with her for four years.

she always got all of the gold stars and i wanted some. so i went to her and i just said how do you study? y i learned in writing this book because i saw her again.r not, i she reminded me of that story. it was nice to be able to include the book. she explained to me how she studied how to underline important facts in what she was reading and how to go back through them the next day so that she began to couldn't permit them to memory. should go through the passages again re- looking for those important points.uiz, u

she taught me. that memorizing things wasn't just repeating things and remembering. i use it to this day.have t you have justin in front of a mirror an opening statement a dozen times. do the same thing with your closing statement and then pick a friend has who's not a lawyer and practice before the survey can tie what they don't understand. nothing do i do without practice.

the supreme court is a mysterious world. when i say it most of you won't want the job. we spent most of our days we read the briefs by friends of the court. there are ports across the country who had faced this question. we write and then we edit. gets

then the opinion get published. they don't really realize how much helps to get there. remembering as a judge that every decision they make there is a winner and a loser. if they don't like we we've done they don't think were smart they think were lazy, how could they get this

wrong. they were trained to look at issues. that's it what they have learned and understood. can seem more into an outsider to someone that loves them the way i do. it's an completely engaging. i have met with schoolchildren

you come to the court and meet with the justices. judges from around the world. they come to the court. i traveled to bar association's i traveled to out other kinds of groups as well.

in one meeting with people i can get them to understand our legal system a little bit better in working for the community. we are busy on lots of different levels.courtr it is a microcosm. one of the major questions we had is how do the judges -- get along.

what are the conference rituals in the way that you all build relationships.. if we come in to this process tr appreciating that every singlele justice on the court have a passion and the love for the constitution and our countrytryh then you know you can understand that you can disagree respectfully in sometimes passionate wordsns, we

were not always so nice to each other in our decisions but that's because we have a commitment to the answer that we think is right. and as you all know from your personal relationships when people think they are right they can get really agitated.et but we do that in writing and in person we treat each other with affection and love because we understand that commitment. and we respect it. i hope i did not use too many of those in my book. we are family. we spent more time with each other than any of us spends with our spouses or our friends because we work together every day of the

week. we are doing our work in our office or elsewhere constantly so that when you spend that much time with each other you figure out a way of how to love each other and stilll disagree. it's what family does every single day. >> i understand you and your official conference you alltu take turns and you can't speak again until it comes round to you. it's a way of making sure that nobody hugs up all the time. on wednesdays we vote on the cases that we heard on a monday of a particular week.k. on friday we discuss and vote on the cases that we heard tuesday so we break it up a little bit because it can take

time to talk about the case. the chief starts. he does two or three sentences is to make sure that we are all on the same page. he will say the issue is there in the case he have to start there. then he tells you what his vote is. and he will go ahead and explain why he didn't think the other side and his argument made sense.made the next person to speak is the most senior judge.chief, a in this case it's justice scalia. he says i either agree with the chief and if i do i do on everything except i think we should mention this i don't

think reasons are really a reason. he expresses what his thinking is and why.until until it reaches the most junior justice he goes last but somewhere in there someone might say i disagree altogether.they and why the other side is wrong. and if there's someone who joins that the center they will do the same as the agree or do.ears they will come and say yes but we should say this. and by the time the conference ends when the writer of the opinion is ultimately aside in the assignments are by the chief if he's in the majority if he's not in the majority than the next most senior

judge voted in the majority assigns the opinion. the most senior judge in the dissent picks who writes it. but by the time you sit down to write an opinion you have a very clear outline of what your colleagues are thinking and it's your job to write an opinion that other people will join. to write because you need five votes to win. you make the decision. if you're on the appeals court there's three judges. you know how to count to two. if you're on the supreme court you know how to count to five your vote and four.

you have to write so people will join your opinion.sent. you want to write c get everybody to say you're right about this. that is how the process ofre writing begins. now clearly after those come in sometimes people say you really are not thinking of the way i am. i have to write differently. the conclusion might be the same and that's called a concurrence. i'm not dissenting for that reason.i was sa so i will write separately. we try to come together as groups as often as we can yesterday's inauguration and your great a reminds us of the

power of the constitution why does it work is remarkable that a guiding document has worked for 223 years in the world's most diverse nation why do you think it works. because our forefathers didn't write a document for the times.cument they wrote a document to last the ages. and the way they did that was to try to not define for their day but to use terms and concepts that each generation could interpret to meet theirld needs. so one of the biggest issues that the court is constantly grappling with in this age of

new technology what does it unreasonable search and seizure me. we felt with cases about about the government plane over your home and you -- and use a technology that takes the air that emanates from your home. we've had questions about wiretaps we had had questionson about gps navigators. and we will have many more. and for sure the forefathers had no idea that the computer in the computer chips would come into existence. int even benjamin franklin i doubt

very much that in his wildest fantasy imagined the things that we could do today. if they had used terms that were more specific than they did we would not had been given the opportunity to define it with experience.ce. so they did a mixture of someur very clear things. you can't do this. one thing we forget about today you can't quarter the militia and people's home except in times of war.cept in that is pretty specific but there were many other things t that they left generally. and i think the documents were there.t.

and we are guided by that concept. but were not ready to affix time. and what worries you about the constitution. are there any trends or issues that you may have your eye on. i don't think this is the form to really talk about it. i will talk about one thing that the recent elections have given me gratification about. our forefathers were citizen states and back then by the way they were all men. they were people that were of the community they were and they were the elite of that

society. they were businessmen very successful farmers there were people who had high educations and actually traveled the world and learned from other cultures. the constitution was written by men who have studied the government through history and other countries. and they crafted something that was unique for the time by picking and choosing from the various things that theypick saw that worked in discarding the things that didn't work. they have not been resolved by other systems. what i am gratified by that more people are voting now than they in the past years because it worries me when

citizens forget that it is their obligation not to let the country just happened t that's what i tell people when they ask me how do you feel about immigration laws. how do you feel about the debate on the second amendment. i generally have a cases but i'm still considering and i don't want people to believesi that i've made up my mind.wa because i haven't but if i express an opinion that's what they will believe. but having said that what i often say to them as where you asking me why are you asking yourself.

and what are you doing about it. if what you think is that you don't like something. because that is what the country was founded on. i people actually getting up and starting a war. to change a country and create a new one. so i'm not suggesting starting a war far from the please but i am encouraging civic responsibility. we should all be citizen state people. we should also be out there lobbying for the things that are important to us. we change if you take charge of that change taken back to

your nomination and the time from your nomination to your swearing-in is there a moment that stands out for you. the moment when i realize how extraordinarily special my mother was. we take the people we love often for granite. they're in our life we don't really know how important they are to us. the most special moment of all during the nomination process was at a friend broke my worldoy i did not want any of the press about me. but one of my closest friends said you have to watch this.t fe

i watched my brother being interviewed on television and he was describing me and he started to cry. in that moment like never before i knew how deeply my brother loved me. most of us don't get a chance to see that or feel that except in moments of tragedypt n illness or death i get to feeling joyful moment that may have been the greatest gift. thank you for a beautiful evening. here is a gift from us.

your watching book tv on and this labor day weekend on book tv it's three days of nonfiction authors and books. today we are alive from the 17th annual national book festival in washington dc it's your chance to talk with pulitzer prize winning authors. you are also curing from former secretary of state condoleezza rice. book tv.org. the radio talkshow host argues against expansion of the federal government on sunday book tv is live against the same for in-depth with author and radio talkshow host eric,

texas. we will discuss the life and career and answer your calls and social media questions from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern time on sunday. then on monday labor day another full day of programs for you. as well as an encore presentation of the recent in-depth program that all happens this labor day weekend 72 hours of nonfiction authors and books its book tv on c-span two. television for serious readers. for complete schedule visit us at book tv.org. and i were to kick going to kick off this labor day weekend with oklahoma wesley and university president everett piper.

they should be pursuing i would like to welcome all of you have joined us here. my name is ian stevens.