Next week: Was Juan Epstein really Jewish?
Wasn’t Jewish jurist Benjamin Cardozo, not Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice?
Not so fast, says the Times:
…Cardozo’s family, which came to America in the 18th century, always believed that its forebears had come from Portugal, not Spain.
Most Hispanic organizations and the United States Census Bureau do not regard Portuguese as Hispanic….
The executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Arturo Vargas, said the contemporary political definition of Hispanic in the United States would definitely not include Cardozo. The practical definition he uses, Mr. Vargas said, includes people who are “descended from countries in the Americas” with a Spanish-language heritage. It does not even include those from Spain itself, he said.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 