Was Cardoza The ‘First Hispanic’ Justice? Maybe not…
June 4th, 2009 | Published in Blog | 5 Comments
People may not want to remember, but before he was Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales appeared to many Latino leaders as if he were being groomed to be a Supreme Court nominee. Gonzales, clearly a member of President George W. Bush’s inner circle, had been a Texas Supreme Court Justice – a post that he was elected to as a Republican.
When President Bush had two opportunities to appoint Supreme Court nominees in 2005, the “first Hispanic” rhetoric was abuzz with discussion about Gonzales. Political rumors say that Gonzales was passed over because ideological conservatives, who were the core of Bush supporters, didn’t trust him. But it was then that Latino USA producers were first questioned about a little-known justice named Benjamin Cardozo, who was on the Supreme Court from 1932-1938.
Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardoza (1932-1938)
According to his biographer, Benjamin Cardozo was appointed to the high court by Republican President Herbert Hoover because of his stellar reputation of 17 years on New York’s highest state court, considered the most prestigious of the lower courts at the time. Hoover was pressured to name an appointee of considerable reputation as Cardozo was replacing an out-going court legend, 90 year-old Oliver Wendell Holmes.
But Cardozo’s ethnicity was clearly known to everyone. He was a Sephardic Jew. And his family was from the Western Sephardim, a region today known as Portugal.
Webster defines “Hispanic” as an adjective of or relating to the people, speech, or culture of Spain and Portugal. Politically, the “Latino” label includes anyone of Latin-American heritage.
There are problems with both definitions. The “Hispanic” label alludes to European roots. So Quechua Indians, full-blooded Mayans, and any indigenous people of Latin America are NOT Hispanic. But they can be considered Latino. But a Spaniard from Spain is NOT Latino.
There are many who would not include the Portuguese under the Hispanic or Latino label, but that is clearly a matter of dispute. Under most technical definitions, Portuguese are Hispanic because they have Iberian roots. And the original Latin term Hispanicus dates from the year 1584 and means “from the Iberian Peninsula.”
However, many Sephardic Jews simply consider themselves to be “Jewish.”
It’s likely that Cardozo closely related to a New York Jewish identity and did not consider himself to be Hispanic.
The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York.
Email This
June 18th, 2009 at 9:25 am (#)
… First they went after Judge Robert Bork
and you said nothing
… Then they went after Judge Clarence Thomas
and you said nothing
… Now they are going after Judge Sonia Sotomayor
and you are making this an anti-Hispanic attack?
June 18th, 2009 at 9:28 am (#)
As an Armenian American on my father’s side (Irish/German American mother) Mark Krikorian embarrasses and enrages me. He seems to think he is part of the ruling class and can act
to suppress the newer immigrants. The story in my family is that when my parents were buying the house I grew up in they were able to finesse our heritage because our surname had a Russian ending. The house in Bethesda MD was covenanted against purchase by “Negroes”, Jews, Armenians, various Asians. When I was in JR High School (at the very school Presidente Bachelet would attend a couple years later) I discovered that houses in another neighborhood closer to DC were also covenanted against Armenians et al. I had BTW meant to write after last week’s commentary but it slipped off the list. I should add that while I am not fluent in Spanish, I can explain construction details on the
job site, and communicate w/ the personnel in the Taco trucks here in the Bay Area. I did manage to tutor a neighborhood kid successfully getting him to pass Spanish in middle
school. . OTOH my French is much better and my Latin rusty but possible.
Final thought on language. Thirty years back the French were freaking out over franglish like le weekend, and le drugsale. Peter Kalischer filmed his CBS report at night w/ the Arc de Triomphe in the backgound suggesting that the US retaliate by dropping detente from usage. Enjoy your work (I go back to infoque).
June 18th, 2009 at 9:35 am (#)
First of all, I am so very impressed by the show, all of NPR as a matter of fact. Its broad scope and well founded information is great to the ears who listen to it. Nevertheless, I do not understand why the term LATINO is being used to name the people whose background is, mainly,from the Spanish-speaking countries of America and Europe, sometimes the Brazilians. Well informed people know and maintain that LATINO refers to all the people whose cultures are based mainly on the European people who became Latin by the Roman Empire(don’t forget the Haitians, Quebequois, Italians, Ecautoguineans,etc.) The Inca, Maya and other Precolumbian peoples are not Latin and still have their own wonderful cultures which are not Latin. Why then misuse a term? To me, it keeps a lot of people in ignorance.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:44 pm (#)
Regarding Mr. Dick Rich’s comments to the posted article:
Nowehere is there any remarks in which accusations of “anti=Hispanic attacks” are made. Let’s get it right!
Thank you for the opportunity
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:25 am (#)
The statements above are somewhat, marginally offensive to one who is partly Sephardic, mostly because they appear to reflect some admixture of ignorance and ethnic pigeonholing.
First - it is kindly requested that you correct the typo in the title, to give his name correctly - CARDOZO
Second - please add at least a word or two about what he accomplished, what he contributed to American life in the U.S., beyond his ethnicity and sound of his last name. He is credited with principled constitutional thinking in support of individual rights, and he had a central role in bringing the Robber Barons Era to an end… These are important lessons, since we live in what may come to be known as the Revival Robber Baron Era.
Third - the question you pose - whether Cardozo considered himself Hispanic is erring in anachronism… I doubt that the construct of “Hispanic” as an ethnicity in the sense that it is used today existed during his time.
Finally - I do not know enough about his upbringing, but it is very likely that he had a good sense of Ladino identity, Jewish identity, and American identity. Ladino was spoken in Sephardic homes into the early 20th century, and the rich cultural tradition tied them very tightly to their origins in Spain and Portugal.
Their pronunciation of Hebrew was entirely different than that of the Eastern European Jews to the point that it was difficult to understand each other. The Sephardic Jews were proud of their Hebrew, and considered the European pronunciation as corruption. Modern Hebrew indeed eventually adopted the Sephardic pronunciation of Hebrew as the standard pronunciation, as recognition of its likelihood of being closer to the original sound of the language.
In the early 20th century, and even more so in the 19th century there was a strong rift between the Sephardic community in NYC and other, newer immigrants, since the Sephardic community was the oldest to be established in the city.