Kamala Harris is all set to become the next Vice President of the United States. Harris will be the first Black woman and African American nominated for Vice President by a major party. Born to Jamaican father and an Indian mother, Harris is a former attorney general of California. She also becomes the first person of Indian descent to hold national office in the United States.
“Over 100 million Americans voted before Election Day with a belief in our electoral process—trusting that their ballots would count. Now, Trump is trying to invalidate these ballots, and we need to fight back. Donate today to support the Biden Fight Fund,” Harris tweeted after Trump alleged electoral fraud in the US election.
Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in Chennai and moved to the United States to pursue a doctoral degree at University of California Berkeley. “When my mother Shyamala [Gopalan] stepped off a plane in California as a 19-year-old, she didn’t have much in way of belongings but she carried with her lessons from home, including ones she’d learned from her parents,” she said.
Kamala Harris has often reflected on her proud Indian heritage. Harris said that her mother would take her and sister Maya to India because she wanted her daughters to understand where she had come from. The 55-year-old Senator recently took a trip down memory lane, recalling her mother’s attempts to “instil a love of good idli” in her and sister Maya.
“Growing up, my mother would take my sister Maya and me back to what was then called Madras because she wanted us to understand where she had come from and where we had ancestry. And, of course, she always wanted to instil in us, a love of good Idli,” she said.
The California Senator remembered how she and her grandfather would go on long walks in what was then called Madaras where the latter would tell Harris about “heroes” who were involved in the freedom struggle in India. She said that the lessons from her grandfather P V Gopalan are a big reason “why I am where I am today”.
