Sunny Hostin I Am These Truths
The View co-host and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin discussed her life and career and shared her personal experiences with identity and injustice. I Am These Truths A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds. By Sunny Hostin, Charisse Jones. On Sale: Price: $27.99. 'The View' Co-Host Sunny Hostin Raises Hens as Part of Her Self-Care Routine. I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds. HarperOne amazon.com.
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I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds By Sunny Hostin
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Book/Novel Author: Sunny Hostin
Book/Novel Title: I Am These Truths
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The Emmy Award winning legal journalist and co-host of The View Sunny Hostin chronicles her journey from growing up in a South Bronx housing project to becoming an assistant U.S. attorney and journalist in this powerful memoir that offers an intimate and unique look at identity, intolerance, and injustice.“What are you?” has followed Sunny Hostin from the beginning of her story, as she grew up half Puerto Rican and half African-American raised by teenage parents in the South Bronx. Escaping poverty and the turbulence of her early life through hard work, a bit of luck and earning academic scholarships to college and law school, Sunny immersed herself in the workings of the criminal justice system. In Washington, D.C., Sunny became a federal prosecutor, soon parlaying her wealth of knowledge of the legal system into a successful career as a legal journalist. She was one of the first national reporters to cover Trayvon Martin’s death—which her producers erroneously labeled “just a local story.” Today, an inescapable voice from the top echelons of news and entertainment, Sunny uses her platform to advocate for social justice and give a voice to the marginalized. In her signature no-holds-barred, straight-up style, Sunny opens up and shares her intimate struggles with fertility and personal turmoil, and reflects on the high-stakes cases and stories she worked on as a prosecutor and during her time at CNN, Fox News, ABC and The View. Timely, poignant, and moving, I Am These Truths is the story of a woman living between two worlds, and learning to bridge them together to fight for what’s right.
Sunny Hostin I Am These Truths
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Sunny Hostin says she wrote her memoir, I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds, for young people.
“I'm just a kid from the South Bronx projects,” Hostin tells Shondaland. “There would be days where we were hungry and didn't have heat or hot water. That's generally not the beginning of most television stars, but that was my beginning. I wanted to tell younger people that if you have a purpose guiding you, you really can do it. You don't have to follow this traditional path, you can make bold career choices and still end up standing.”
As a lawyer, journalist, co-host of The View, and now author, Hostin has many truths to tell. One of the intentions for her book was to give readers a glimpse at what's possible if they live life as their fullest and truest selves.
“I know when I was growing up, no one looked like me doing what I'm doing and I desperately wanted that. If I can be that for someone, it will make it worthwhile,' says Hostin. 'You don't live a perfect day unless you do something for someone who can't repay you. So I'm hoping that this will be that for people.”
Shondaland spoke with Hostin about the difficulties of writing a memoir, what it means to straddle two identities as an Afro-Latina, and the responsibility she feels to speak for an entire community.
JULIANA UKIOMOGBE: To start, tell me about the inspiration behind the title of your book.
SUNNY HOSTIN: “I Am These Truths” comes from the part in the constitution that says, “We hold these truths to be self evident” because I'm a lawyer first, but I do think that it's really empowering for people to know that their truth is what makes them authentic. That is something that I think the constitution envisioned, this sort of perfect union that certainly we haven't achieved. But as a country, we keep on trying to perfect that union and part of perfecting it is to have all people of all different identities, of different states, of different races living together. Because I wanted to explore living with different identities, cultures, and races within myself, I was reminded by what the promise of the constitution held. So that's why I chose it.
JU: Was writing a memoir difficult? I can imagine that recalling events from birth up until now can be quite hard.
SH: It was so hard. I wrote a novel [Summer on the Bluffs: A Novel] around the same time and I had so much fun writing it. This book was so much more difficult. I can say that writing it wasn't fun. I knew it was important to write it, but I was concerned and worried, not because I was telling my story, but I was worried about telling my mother's story, my father's story, the stories of my friends, the stories of my family members, and some of my colleagues.
I talk about The View, I talk about my time at CNN, and I just wasn't sure how it would affect that. That really worried me. I felt really exposed, even though I expose myself every day on The View. There were certain chapters that were really difficult to write like the chapter on motherhood and writing about being fired from CNN, which I don't think a lot of people knew. In fact, I just did the audiobook for I Am These Truths and I cried after reading the motherhood chapter. My director was crying too, which means it must've been pretty good, but it was really hard and much more difficult than I thought it would be.
JU: In the book, you talk a lot about identity and what it means to straddle two sides. I really liked your sections on your sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and how that helped you feel seen and heard. Can you talk me through your decision to join?
SH: Well, I'm an only child and the notion of sisterhood was always so attractive to me. I always asked my parents, “Why don't I have any siblings?” So when I started seeing this group of Black women together, and the camaraderie and the cohesiveness, I was like, “I want to be a part of that.” Then I would see them doing things together in the community, like community service activities and food drives. I knew more than anything that if being in the organization was just a fraction of what I could see from the outside, it would be a lifelong commitment for me. Not to mention, I love step shows. I love the parties. Pledging and becoming a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated has been one of the pleasures of my life. The access that I got and the acceptance I got from my sorors was truly a life-changer for me. Audacity for mac os.
JU: And now one of your sorority sisters is the Democratic VP candidate.
SH Download lync for mac. : Yeah, exactly. Kamala Harris is in AKA. When she came to The View, she knew that I was an AKA and I knew that she was an AKA. What I didn't know was that our birthdays are on the same day, October 20th. So it was great and I'm pretty excited. I cried like a baby when she was chosen, the ugly cry.
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Apache mysql php for mac os x. JU: Have you ever felt a responsibility to speak for an entire community of people?
SH: I absolutely do. And that may sound like a heavy burden, but I know that I get emails, tweets, and mail correspondence to me every day and they say, “Thank you for giving voice to the community, and thank you for having that platform.” So I know that I am speaking on behalf of the community, that's absolutely true. At least on The View I have Whoopi there, but when I do other news programs, I am typically the only Black voice.
Across networks, I have been the only Black legal correspondent — that's ridiculous. I know we're out there, I know we're qualified, but it's not happening. The diversity that we bring is an added qualification because we get to bring our lived experience and we get to bring that perspective. Where others may have a blind spot, we don't. I hope that because audiences are thirsty for our perspective, that this is going to be a new time for journalism.
JU: As a Black woman on television, how have you navigated spaces of microaggressions or just outright, blatant racism?
SH: I think I handled them in the best way that I knew how at the time. Thankfully now we have words for them. Now we know they're called microaggressions. When I was coming up, you just knew it was happening to you, but didn't really know what to call it. I navigated it knowing that it was really precarious and that I needed to be careful, but I also needed to be bold, and I needed to stand up for myself, which caused me plenty of problems. I can say that I was one who said, “I don't like the way I'm being treated and this is wrong.” But I made some confessions, too, that I talk about it in the book. My name's always been Asunción. My family members call me that, but Nancy Grace couldn't pronounce it, so I changed my name. I mentor a lot of young people, and now, I would never tell someone to do that because that's erasing part of your identity. So now I would say, if they can't pronounce your name, make them.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Sunny Hostin I Am These Truths
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Juliana Ukiomogbe is a freelance writer who covers books, film, and wellness. You can follow her on on Twitter: @juliana_uki
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