Who Is Kamala Harris and What’s Her Indian Connection

Washington DC: US President Joe Biden, after his withdrawal from the Presidential election race, endorsed Vice-president Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. As Biden extended his support to the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris (59) is likely to become the first Black woman to run for the top post from a major party ticket in the country’s history. However, it is unclear whether other senior Democrats would challenge Harris for the party’s nomination – she was widely seen as the pick for many party officials. One more interesting fact about Harris is that she has an Indian connection. 

Meanwhile, after the sudden turn of events, Democrats now will have to choose a new nominee and if Biden's endorsement for Kamala Harris is approved at the Democratic Party convention, which is slated to take place in August, she would become the first US presidential candidate of Indian origin. And if she wins the November US presidential election, Harris will become the first woman and Indian-origin president of the United States.

Harris’s rise as the daughter of immigrants – one from Jamaica, one from India – serves as a powerful counter-narrative to former President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. This is why, it is being speculated that her Indian identity is going to be debated in the coming months again. 

Who is Kamala Harris?

Kamala Harris is a child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants. In addition to being the first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket, she’s also the first Indian American to contest US presidential elections. 

Harris was born to Shyamala Gopalan who was born in Chennai and immigrated to the US to attend a doctoral program at UC Berkeley. Like Barack Obama, a mixed-race lineage has allowed Harris to care out connections across identities and reach diverse audiences and voting blocs.

Education

Kamala Harris, along with her mother and sister, moved back to California in 1970, while her father remained in the Midwest. Her parents divorced when she was seven. Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighbourhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

When she was twelve, Harris and her sister moved with their mother to Montreal, Quebec, where Harris attended various schools in her childhood before finally attending Westmount High School in Westmount. Harris later attended Vanier College in Montreal in 1981-1982.

After high school, in 1982, Harris attended Howard University, a historically black university in Washington DC. While at Howard, she interned as a mailroom clerk for California senator Alan Cranston. Harris graduated from Howard in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics.

She then returned to California to attend law school at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. While at UC Hastings, she served as president of its chapter of the Black Law Students Association. She graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1989 and was admitted to the California Bar in June 1990. 

Professional Career

Harris began her law career in the office of the district attorney (DA) of Alameda County, before being recruited to the San Francisco DA's Office and later the city attorney of San Francisco's office. In 2003, she was elected the district attorney of San Francisco. She was elected attorney general of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Harris served as the junior US senator from California from 2017 to 2021.

In 2016, she defeated Loretta Sanchez in the Senate election to become the second African-American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the US Senate. As a senator, Harris advocated for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, gun control laws, federal de-scheduling of cannabis, as well as healthcare and taxation reform. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but withdrew from the race before the primaries. Biden selected her to be his running mate, and their ticket went on to defeat the then-incumbent president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, in the 2020 election.

After the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the 2024 United States presidential election, Harris has been considered the frontrunner for the presidential nomination at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, receiving endorsements from Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and the Congressional Black Caucus, among many others.

Joe Biden Drops His Name From US Presidential Race

US President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign on Sunday after fellow Democrats lost faith in his mental acuity and ability to beat Donald Trump while endorsing Vice President Kamal Harris to replace him as the party’s candidate.

Biden, 81, in a post on X, said he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025 and will address the nation this week.

“It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.

Biden’s announcement follows a wave of public and private pressure from Democratic lawmakers and party officials to quit the race after his shockingly poor performance in a June 27 televised debate last month against Republican rival Trump, 78.