Wise Latina: Framing Sonia Sotomayor in the General-Market And Latina/o-Oriented Prestige Press

Abstract

This narrative framing analysis examines The New York Times and El Diario-La Prensa coverage of Sonia Sotomayor, the first woman of color nominated for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. It adds to the body of framing research in three ways: by using critical race theory (CRT) and intersectionality, which has not yet been used in news media studies of women of color in political roles, to explore definitions of identity, by building on previous studies' frames to analyze “benefit of diversity” versus “burden of diversity” frames, and by comparing general-market with Latina/o-oriented prestige press. This study found the 2 presses' coverage in opposition, with the Latina/o-oriented article providing a counternarrative to the general-market article. Times coverage framed Sotomayor's Latinaness as a burdensome mantle she should shed to assimilate. Using CRT and intersectionality, Times coverage defined her as non-Anglo, or by that which she is not, and portrayed her identity as primarily Hispanic, rather than as female and Hispanic. El Diario coverage privileged frames that showed her nondominant perspective as benefitting the court's worldview. Using CRT and intersectionality, El Diario coverage challenged dominant group assumptions and encompassed all dimensions of her Latina identity simultaneously.

KEYTERMS:

• critical race theory
• diversity
• framing
• identity
• intersectionality
• Latina/o
• newspaper
• Sotomayor

Notes

The term Anglo is used here to refer to non-Latino, non-Arab Caucasians. The terms Latino and Hispanic refer to ethnicity, not race. Using White to mean non-Latino is imprecise. The U.S. Census shows that most Latinos report that they are racially Caucasian.

Latina/o-oriented news media is defined here to encompass Spanish-language, bi-lingual, and English-language news media targeted toward Latina/os.

El Diario examples have been translated into English by the author.