Kamala Harris’ life is replete with unique distinctions. Coming from a multiracial background, she is the first woman, first Black, and first Asian American to be the US Vice President.
Born in Oakland, California, in 1964, she is the daughter of immigrants. Her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher from India, and her father, Donald Harris, an economist from Jamaica, met as graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley.
They were activists who took her to civil rights marches when she was a child—an experience that inspired her to become a lawyer. After her parents divorced when she was seven, she and her sister, Maya, were raised by their mother.
Black school and law school
When she was 12, she moved to Canada with her mother and sister. After graduating from high school, she returned to the United States to study at Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, D.C., where she majored in political science and economics.
After graduating from Howard, she earned a law degree in 1989 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Admitted to the Bar in California in 1990, she worked as an assistant district attorney in Oakland, specializing in prosecuting child sexual assault cases before going on to serve in the San Francisco district attorney’s office.
Harris, 59, said she became a prosecutor because she wanted to work from the inside to change a criminal justice system that disproportionately affects minorities.
Political career
She was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003, becoming the first African American woman and South Asian American woman to hold the office. Seven years later, she was elected California’s attorney general – the first woman and first African American to hold the office.
While serving as attorney general, she married Doug Emhoff, a Los Angeles lawyer, in 2014. He is the first Jewish spouse of a US vice president. Harris identifies as a Christian but attended Hindu temples with her mother.
Senate record
In 2016, she was elected to the U.S. Senate, the first South Asian senator in history.
She served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she grilled the then president Donald Trump’s appointees and officials in hearings. Famously, pressing the then Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh on the abortion issue, she asked him, “Can you think of any laws that gives government the power to make decisions about the male body?”
In January 2019, Harris announced she would run for president. However, she struggled to gather support and dropped out of the race in December 2019.
Nevertheless, Biden selected her to be his running mate, keeping his promise to pick a woman for his deputy.
Also Read: Kamala Harris visits US Olympic basketball team — USA News (theindependent.co)
As Vice President
Once elected, President Biden gave her the difficult task of looking into the illegal immigration problem. In that role, she came under fire from Republicans for a surge in border crossings.
However, she showed her mettle on other fronts, speaking against gun violence and restrictions on abortion, including the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
Prominent Democratic lawmakers have quickly rallied around Harris after she was endorsed by President Biden.
Even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who held back from supporting her initially, has now come out in her favour. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for president is official, per and political,” she said.
Biden paid her the ultimate compliment. In a statement endorsing her, he wrote, “My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.”
