As an immigrant and a partner of an African American man, I was delighted when Joe Biden choice Kamala Harris to be the Vice President.
When Kamala Harris is sworn in as vice president, she will represent many firsts: First female vice president. First Black woman. First woman of Indian descent. But there is another milestone that will be on display: that of her family.
Millions of Americans will see a more expansive version of the American family— one that could broaden rigid ideas of politically palatable family dynamics or gender roles.
“It’s striking,” said Ralph Richard Banks, a law professor at Stanford who has written about race, gender and family patterns. “In some ways they are at the frontier of different aspects of American families and how they’re changing.”
Ms. Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, was raised with both Christian and Hindu practices, while her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is white, grew up attending Jewish summer camp.
Mr. Emhoff was divorced, with two children from his previous marriage, making his children, Cole and Ella, among the one in four who do not live with both biological parents, according to the Census Bureau. Ms. Harris did not have children.
Kamala is a politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from California from 2017 until 2021. Prior to her election to the Senate, she served as the attorney general of California.
Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
She began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, before being recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and later the City Attorney of San Francisco’s office. In 2003, she was elected district attorney of San Francisco. She was elected Attorney General of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.
Harris defeated Loretta Sanchez in the 2016 Senate election to become the second African American woman and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate. As a senator, she has advocated healthcare reform, federal de-scheduling of cannabis, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, a ban on assault weapons, and progressive tax reform.
She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault.
In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, Ms. Harris spoke about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, an immigrant who came to California as a teenager and raised Kamala and her sister, Maya, after she and their father divorced.,
When their family gathers this week in Washington, it will be the first time they’ve all seen each other in more than two months.
The last time was the week of the election, gathered at a house in Delaware, where they passed the time with games, karaoke, food — and waited, anxiously, for the official results to come in. There was one night that just turned into a dance party.
In other words, just a family hanging out — hoping for history to be made.
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Source: New York Times, Wikipedia
