As vice chairman, she is the primary lady to carry the publish. Additionally, she occurs to be the primary African-American or Indian-American individual to get there.
In an op-ed printed three days earlier than the Nov. 5 election, Harris recalled her frequent visits to India as a toddler and remembered her late mom, Shyamala Gopalan, a most cancers researcher and civil rights activist.
“Rising up, my mom raised my sister and I to understand and honor our heritage. Nearly each different yr, we’d go to India for Diwali. We might spend time with our grandparents, our uncles and our 'chitthis' (aunts). ” Harris mentioned within the article for The Juggernaut, a South Asian on-line publication.
She mentioned she believes Individuals need a president who works for all of the American folks. “And that's been the story of my entire profession,” she mentioned. Harris acquired her huge likelihood when President Joe Biden deserted his re-election bid in July after his poor efficiency in a nationally televised debate with Trump. Biden endorsed Harris because the occasion's nominee within the election. Her nomination fulfilled her presidential goals, which she deserted earlier than the 2019 major attributable to a scarcity of funds to proceed her marketing campaign.
Biden selected her as his operating mate in 2016. She was solely the third lady to be chosen because the vice presidential nominee on a significant occasion ticket.
And she or he was considered one of three Asian Individuals within the Senate and the primary Indian-American to ever serve within the chamber.
She was preferred by Barack Obama, the nation's first black president.
Greater than a decade in the past, journalist Gwen Ifill referred to as Harris the “feminine Barack Obama” on the Late Present With David Letterman. Later, a small Willoughby businessman, Tony Pinto, referred to as her “a younger, feminine model of the president.”
She is taken into account near Obama, who supported her in varied elections, together with for the US Senate in 2016, the Vice President in 2020 and the presidential election in 2024.
Harris was born to 2 immigrant dad and mom: a black father and an Indian mom. Her father, Donald Harris, is from Jamaica and her mom, Shyamala Gopalan, immigrated to the US from Chennai in 1958. Nonetheless, she defines herself merely as “American”.
After his dad and mom divorced, Harris was raised primarily by his Hindu mom. She says her mom adopted black tradition and immersed her two daughters — Kamala and her youthful sister Maya — in it. Harris grew up embracing her Indian tradition however dwelling a lifetime of being proudly African American.
“My mom understood very nicely that she was elevating two black ladies”, she writes in her autobiography “The Truths We Maintain”. “She knew her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black ladies, and he or she was decided to ensure we grew as much as be assured and proud black ladies.”
Harris was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley. She spent her highschool years dwelling in French-speaking Canada — her mom taught at McGill College in Montreal.
“Harris was raised in a middle-class household by a working-class mom who taught her to imagine within the promise of America. Her mom additionally taught her the worth of laborious work, bringing Kamala to her analysis lab breast most cancers and exhibiting her methods to clear take a look at tubes as a toddler,” in response to the Harris marketing campaign web site.
She attended school within the US, spending 4 years at Howard College, which she has described as among the many most formative experiences of her life. After Howard, she went on to earn her legislation diploma on the College of California, Hastings and commenced her profession on the Alameda County District Legal professional's Workplace.
She turned the highest prosecutor for San Francisco in 2003 earlier than being elected the primary lady and the primary individual of coloration to function California's legal professional basic in 2010, the highest lawyer in America's most populous state.
In her almost two phrases as legal professional basic, Harris earned a popularity as one of many Democratic Occasion's rising stars. In 2017, she was sworn into the US Senate, the place she championed laws to battle starvation, present lease reduction, enhance maternal well being care, develop entry to capital for small companies, revitalize infrastructure America and to battle the local weather disaster.
Harris has been married to Douglas Emhoff, an legal professional, for the previous 10 years. She is the stepmother of two kids, Ella and Cole, who’re her “infinite supply of affection and pure pleasure.”
His position as vice chairman was greater than merely symbolic. In contrast to her predecessors, she wielded appreciable energy in the course of the Biden presidency.
As president of the Senate, she set a brand new report for probably the most votes forged by a vice chairman in historical past – surpassing that which had stood for almost 200 years. And her votes have been essential.