Kamala Harris is making history – in several ways. You have to know that about her career and her family.
She becomes the first woman, the first black woman and the first woman with Indian roots to hold the office of US Vice President: Kamala Harris (56) is writing history at the side of US President-elect Joe Biden (77).
Harris was born in Oakland, California. Her mother was the Indian-American cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan Harris (1938-2009), her father is the Jamaican-American economics professor Donald J. Harris (82). The couple met while studying in Berkeley, California, and divorced in 1971 when Kamala was a young child.
Visits to India
Kamala Harris learned about the cultural roots of both parents during their childhood. As she revealed in a TV appearance in early 2019 according to media reports, she simply identifies herself as a "proud American". Kamala Harris is said to have visited India frequently as a girl.
After their parents divorced, Kamala Harris and her younger sister Maya Harris (53) were raised primarily by their mother. She understood very well that she was raising two black daughters, Harris said in her autobiography "The Truths We Hold" from 2019, according to the BBC. Her mother, who died in 2009, knew "that her adopted home Maya and me were black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow up to be confident, proud black women ”.
School time in Canada
Kamala Harris attended high school in Montreal, Canada, where her mother was working at the time. After returning to the United States, the budding politician, who accompanied her parents to civil rights demonstrations as a child, received her bachelor's degree in political and economic science from Howard University in Washington. She later described these years as "formative". Harris then studied law at the University of California.
Harris later worked, among other things, as a district attorney for San Francisco. After two terms, she ran for the California Attorney General and became the first woman in that capacity. She told the New York Times that she decided to become a prosecutor because she wanted to try "to get into the system where I don't have to ask permission to change what needs to be changed".
After her election to the U.S. Senate, Harris stepped down as Attorney General for California in January 2017. At the beginning of 2019, Harris announced her presidential candidacy, but withdrew it a few months later due to low poll numbers. In August 2020, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who was named the winner of the presidential election on November 7, made her his runner-up candidate.
Her sister is also known
Kamala Harris' younger sister also has experience in politics. Maya Harris is a lawyer, political analyst for MSNBC and worked as a senior advisor on Hillary Clinton's, 73, election campaign. Maya Harris then supported her sister in her presidential candidacy.
Kamala Harris receives further support from her husband. She is said to have met the lawyer Douglas Emhoff (56) on a blind date. In 2014 the two married. Emhoff has two children from a previous marriage. According to "Glamor", the couple should like to stand together in the kitchen and prepare extensive menus. And Kamala Harris is known for something else – her special shoe choice: Instead of high heels, the politician relies on comfortable sneakers from Converse. Will she wear them in the White House too?