Across the political spectrum, Latinos in the region used the words historic and landmark yesterday to describe President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I can relax and die happy," exclaimed Nelson Diaz, a former administrative judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Like Diaz, several said the nomination marked the overdue entry of Latinos into the uppermost tier of public life.

"I think it is completely fair to analogize it to the appointment of Thurgood Marshall" as the first African American Supreme Court justice, said Kenneth Trujillo, former city solicitor for Philadelphia.

"The sheer excellence required to be considered for the Supreme Court, along with her pedigree - summa cum laude out of Princeton, an editor at Yale Law Journal, and a first-rate legal mind - combined with her compelling life story, makes this a watershed moment," Trujillo said.

Luis Pastoriza, Camden's city clerk, voiced pride but opined that the appointment of a Latina had "been a long time coming. The Supreme Court has been very slow to represent society in general."

Several Hispanic leaders pointed to Sotomayor's rise from a modest background - her father had only a third-grade education - and noted how her life paralleled their own.

"She grew up in public housing; I grew up in public housing," Diaz said.

Sotomayor "is the kind of Latino who made it to the top starting from the bottom," observed Hernan Guaracao, editor and publisher of Al Dia, the region's largest Spanish-language newspaper. "It's a great step forward for Latinos to see someone like her coming to the top on her own merits."

Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, founder of the LEAP Academy in Camden and a distinguished Rutgers-Camden professor, called Sotomayor "a real Puerto Rican, in the sense that she is from the community and understands the need of the Latino community.

"She is a believer in equity and justice, friendly to the vulnerable and the poor in the country," Bonilla-Santiago said. But "she is also mainstream, so she is able to play a much larger role."

Teresa Rodriguez, president of the Hispanic Bar Association of Pennsylvania, agreed. "She's not just Ivy League. There's also that personal story of struggle." Sotomayor's remarkable achievements reveal a "priority to excel," Rodriguez said.

The Rev. Luis Cortes, president of Esperanza USA, a national association of Hispanic Christian Evangelicals, also praised Sotomayor's triumphs in the face of obstacles. "Her story is great: It's part of who we are as a nation," said Cortes, who couldn't help boasting that he, too, "grew up near Yankee Stadium."

Cortes added, however, that he and other Christian evangelicals were anxious to learn Sotomayer's views on abortion, since she is the nominee of a president who supports abortion rights.

"It's a concern," he said, "but she appears to be more of a moderate than some of the others I'd seen mentioned" for the high court. If Senate conservatives defeat her nomination, Cortes speculated, "they might get someone more liberal."

Anna Vega, director of the Office of Hispanic Catholics at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said that "as a Catholic and a Puerto Rican and a [native] New Yorker, I'm very proud" of the Sotomayor appointment, but said she hoped that as a justice, Sotomayor leaned away from abortion rights.

"I think she will be her own person," said Vega, who likened the nominee to Justice David H. Souter, whom Sotomayor will succeed if the Senate confirms her.

Souter, a New Hampshire judge, was presumed to be a legal and political conservative when President George H. W. Bush named him in 1990, but he proved to be one of the court's most liberal members.

Diaz, who has known Sotomayer for years and counts her as a friend, predicted her nomination would serve as role model for young Hispanics.

"I think kids in North Philadelphia should now say: 'I have no limitations on my life. There's no reason why I can't be a judge or a lawyer or a doctor or whatever I want to be.' "

Contact staff writer David O'Reilly at 215-854-5723 or doreilly@phillynews.com.