Congratulation to Kamala Harris for becoming the first female vice president elect in America’s 244-year history. Kamala Harris, the historic vice president-elect, who will also be the first African American and first South Asian American vice president in history.
Kamala Harris will assume office, alongside president-elect Joe Biden, on January 20, 2021. When Joe Biden announced Harris’ historic selection in August, Biden praised Harris as a “fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants.”
The daughter of an immigrant mother from India and an immigrant father from Jamaica, Harris will be the first African American and first South Asian American vice president in history. Harris has said that she hopes to be the first of many capable women in her new role: “My mother would look at me and she’d say, ‘Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you are not the last. That’s why breaking those barriers is worth it. As much as anything else, it is also to create that path for those who will come after us.”
Harris was born in Oakland, California in 1964, and her parents instilled in her the importance of political engagement from the time she was a baby in a stroller at civil rights marches. After her parents divorced when she was seven, she was raised primarily by her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who had a tremendous influence on her.
“My mother, she raised my sister and me, and she was tough,” recounted Harris. “Our mother was all of 5 feet tall, but if you ever met her, you would’ve thought she was 10 feet tall.”
Gopalan Balachandran, her maternal uncle in New Delhi, a retired academic told VOA, about the values Harris absorbed while growing up were simple.
“Don’t judge anybody by what they eat, what their religion [is], what language they speak and anything like that. Basically, be a human being and there is nothing special about being a human being in our family,” Balachandran said.
Who thought, six decades ago, when his sister, Shyamala Gopalan, migrated from the southern Indian city of Chennai to study in the U.S, where she married a Jamaican, and have Kamala Harris as their daughter. Now Harris’ path to vice president-elect as the first woman, the first Black candidate and first Indian American.
“You are what you are, don’t let others defend you, don’t take anything lying down, she used to tell them,” Gopalan Balachandran said about his sister, that always taught her daughters, Kamala Harris and Maya Harris to be strong.
Kamala Harris moved with her mother and sister to Montreal, Canada, when she was 12, where her mother had a research job. In one of her first forays into activism at age 13, she organized children to successfully challenge a rule that kids couldn’t play soccer outside of their apartment building.
After graduating from high school in Quebec in 1981, Harris returned to the U.S. to attend Howard University in Washington, DC. She graduated in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics and went on to attend University of California, Hastings College of the Law where she earned her Juris Doctor in 1989. Harris soon established herself as a capable district attorney and eventually became the first person of color elected District Attorney of San Francisco in 2002.
She was then elected Attorney General of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. After long-time Senator Barbara Boxer announced plans to retire in 2016, Harris ran for her seat and was elected as the junior senator from California in 2016. In that role, she gained more national prominence, especially for her pointed questioning of then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh regarding accusations of sexual assault.
In January 2019, Harris announced her candidacy for president, joining a crowded field of candidates in the Democratic primary. Although she tied for the most donations raised in the day following an announcement, she struggled to generate enthusiasm for her candidacy around the country and withdrew from the race in December 2019. After Biden committed to choosing a woman to be his running mate in March, speculation grew that Harris was the front runner and, in August, he announced that Harris was joining his ticket as vice president.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Biden listed the reasons he felt she was the perfect pick: “Number one: Her values. Number two: She is smart as a devil. Number three: She has a backbone like a ramrod. Number four: She is really principled. And number five: She has had significant experience in the largest state in the union, running a Justice Department that’s only second in size to the United States Justice Department.”
Harris will now go down in history as the first female vice president, and she has hopes of inspiring many women to come after her: “I’ve been a proud mentor to many women seeking public office, because I believe we need more women at all levels of government. Women have an equal stake in our future and should have an equal voice in our politics. These are challenging times, but I believe getting more women to run for office is a big part of the solution.”
You can share her story with children, there is an uplifting new picture book about Kamala and her sister as girls for ages 4 to 8, Kama and Maya’s Big Idea
And a new picture book biography for ages 5 to 9, Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice
Kamala Harris has also written two books for children
Superheroes Are Everywhere, for ages 4 to 8
The Truth We Hold for ages 12 and up
Kamala Harris also features in the inspiring children’s books about women in politics for ages 9 and up
Leading the Way: Women In Power
