United States - Governance
Biden's VP Pick: Why Kamala Harris Embraces her Biracial Roots By Soutik Biswas, India correspondent
"My name is pronounced "comma-la", like the punctua on mark," Kamala Harris writes in her 2018 autobiography, The Truths We Hold. The California senator, daughter of an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father, then explains the meaning of her Indian name. "It means 'lotus flower', which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture. A lotus grows underwater, its flowers rising above the surface while the roots are planted firmly in the river bo om." Early in life, young Kamala and her sister Maya grew up in a house filled with music by black American ar sts. Her mother would sing along to Aretha Franklin's early gospel, and her jazz-loving father, who taught economics at Stanford University, would play Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane on the turntable. Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris separated when Ms. Harris was five. Raised primarily by her Hindu single mother, a cancer researcher and a civil rights ac vist, Kamala, Maya and Shyamala were known as "Shyamala and the girls". Her mother made sure her two daughters were aware of their background. "My mother understood very well she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident black women," she wrote. "Harris grew up embracing her Indian culture, but living a proudly African-American life," wrote the Washington Post last year. The 55-year-old senator says she has not grappled with her iden ty and describes herself simply as "an American". In many ways, say people who know her, Ms. Harris straddles both communi es e ortlessly. When Ms. Harris got married to Douglas Emho , a lawyer, in 2014, "in keeping with [our] respec ve Indian and Jewish heritage", she put a flower garland around her new husband's neck and he stomped on a glass. Ms. Harris's public image has been more ed to her iden ty as an African-American poli cian, especially recently during the current conversa on around race
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and the Black Lives Ma er movement in the US. But Indian-Americans also view her as one of their own, her candidacy sugges ng a poten al wider recogni on of the Indian and South Asian communi es in the country. It is clear that her late mother was a big inspira on for Ms. Harris. Gopalan was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai, the oldest of four children. She graduated from the University of Delhi at the age of 19, and applied to a graduate programme at Berkeley in the USA. Gopalan picked up her doctorate degree at age 25 in 1964, the same year Ms. Harris was born. She met Kamala Harris's father and fell in love at Berkeley while par cipa ng in the civil rights movement. Back in India, Gopalan had been raised in a household of "poli cal ac vism and civic leadership". Her grandmother never a ended high school, but was a community organiser taking in vic ms of domes c violence and educa ng women about contracep on. Her grandfather, PV Gopalan, was a senior diplomat in the Indian government who lived in Zambia a er it gained independence, and he helped se le refugees. Kamala Harris lived in Zambia as child with her family for a me during her grandfather's tour of duty. In her book, she writes she is close to her mother's brother and two sisters, with whom she kept in touch through long distance calls and le ers and periodic trips. Ms. Harris's mother died in 2009, at age 70. US Democra c Party ac vists like Shekar Narasimhan say her candidacy would be "seismic" for the IndianAmerican community. "She's a woman, she biracial, she will help win the elec on for Biden, she appeals to various communi es and she's really smart." "Why should Indian-Americans not be proud of her? It's a signal that we are coming of age." www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53745141 Image credit: Getty Images
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