Puerto Rico/United States: Sonia Sonia Sotomayor and the Reconquest of America.

Section: General News - When Puerto Rican judge, Sonia Sotomayor took her oath of office on Saturday, August 8th, and was sworn in as a Chief Justice to the United States Supreme Court, she represented, for many Hispanic Americans, not only herself, but the Latino community as a whole. Indeed, for numerous Latinos, the appointment of Ms. Sotomayor to the highest judicial body in the land embodied a major step in a process that began many years ago in the United States and is now nearing completion - a process known as ?la reconquista?.

The term - in reference to the United States - was initially popularized by Mexican writers, Carlos Fuentes and Elena Poniatowskia to describe the sizeable Hispanic ethnic and cultural presence in the American Southwest. The phrase received its political veneer in the 1970's when it was adopted by certain Chicano nationalists, who called for the return of Aztlan, the traditional Aztec homeland, to Mexico.

Some scholars believe this homeland to have been located near Lake Powell in the state that is now known as Arizona, whereas others equate it with the Native American Anasazi culture, placing it in the proximity of Mesa Verde, Colorado. At any …