CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - For Judge Sonia Sotomayor, just being Latina means her objectivity is in question.
That's the message that stands out to University of Illinois professor Isabel Molina-Guzmán in too much of the coverage so far of the Supreme Court nominee, whose confirmation hearings began Monday.
Being a Latina "raises questions about her neutrality, it raises questions about her motivations in ways that I think other justices haven't had to deal with," according to Molina-Guzmán, a University of Illinois professor and author of a book on the portrayal of Latinas in the U.S. media to be published early next year.
White judges often are "assumed to be automatically neutral," to have no ethnic or racial identity that might influence their decisions, she said. "Even though we're supposed to be in a post-racial moment, if you're a person of color you're automatically suspect. Somehow you're not neutral or not able to be objective, because of your identity."
Molina-Guzmán is a professor of media and cinema studies in the university's College of Media, and will soon take over as the director of the university's Latina/Latino Studies Program. Like Sotomayor, her heritage is Puerto Rican; she was born on the island and moved to the U.S. with her family during childhood.
Molina-Guzmán said she was impressed that President Obama nominated a Latina judge for the Supreme Court, but even more so that it was a Latina who embraced her ethnic identity and showed allegiance to that community.
"She's actually one of the few public figures of color that I've seen in the last 10-15 years who wasn't afraid of her identity, who wasn't afraid to identify as a Latina, as a Puerto Rican woman, and also to be a professional woman who could carry out her job in a professional way," she said.
Doing both is not a conflict, Molina-Guzmán said, contrary to criticisms of Sotomayor's involvement in certain organizations and of certain speeches to minority audiences. "The types of speeches she gave are the types of speeches that every faculty member of color is asked to give, that any kind of person who embodies any type of role model or achievement is asked to give," she said.
In her book, "Dangerous Curves: Latina Bodies in the Media," Molina-Guzmán takes a case-study approach to her subject, starting with the way several Cuban-American women were covered and portrayed in the months-long Elián González international custody dispute of 1999-2000. She also examines the tabloid coverage of actress Jennifer Lopez; the art-house film "Frida" and its star Salma Hayek; the television show "Ugly Betty," centering on a young Latina and her family; and the films "Maid in Manhattan" and "Spanglish," both about Latina domestic workers.
This media-wide examination is important, Molina-Guzmán said, because "we see very similar patterns of how Latinas are treated and discussed and represented across the media landscape. You see it in the news and then you see it reaffirmed in popular culture, and they work together to really construct a particular image and set of stereotypes."
In the media generally, Molina-Guzmán said, Latinas are often either "maternal, self-sacrificing, super-religious" or "hot-headed, potentially uncontrollable spitfires."
And though Sotomayor does not fit easily into either portrayal, Molina-Guzmán said it's interesting how some news coverage has focused on her running a "hot bench."
The term is generally used to describe judges who are hostile or aggressive in their questioning, but it reaffirms stereotypical associations of Latinas as hot-headed and emotional, Molina-Guzman said.
It's also a term not used to describe any other Supreme Court nominees in recent memory, Molina-Guzman said.