Specifically she means affirmative action policies, various race and gender based advantages and basic cheating made her dream possible. In fact I would remind everybody with this widely popular quote by Ms. Sotomayor exactly how important race is to her:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," she said October 26, 2001.[CNN 5/28/09]

Of course she talked about how important her Latina mother is and more or less how much more important her nomination is than say...a white male?

Clearly these hearings are going to be difficult for me to watch.