 "Kamala Harris")
Kamala Harris, the state of California’s attorney general, has become the second woman of African-American origin to be elected to the US Senate. She is also the first Indian-American to claim this office.
Her ties to India, though, are somewhat remote despite her first name (lotus in Sanskrit). Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, left Chennai in the 1960s to migrate to the US. She was a scientist and was researching endocrinology (specifically, the complex mechanism of cancer) at Berkeley. Her father, Donald was from Jamaica, where he became a national scholar and earned the opportunity to study economics.
“My parents were both graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley. I grew up with a stroller’s-eye view of the civil rights movement, and often I joke that as a child, I was surrounded by adults marching and shouting for this thing called justice,” she says. Younger sister Maya and she grew up around adults who were committed to service and community involvement.
Harris is clear about her politics. “I’ve never been a fan of the word ‘can’t’ — aimed at me, or anyone else. No child should feel they can’t get a high quality public school education because of the neighbourhood where they live. No student should think they can’t go to college because it costs too much. No woman should be told she can’t make her own decisions about her body. No person should live in the shadows because Washington can’t pass comprehensive immigration reform. No hard-working American should believe they can’t find a job that will support their family. America is a place built on ‘can’, where opportunity exists for everyone,” she says in her mission statement.
She counts Barack and Michelle Obama as her friends. The US President had to apologise when he described Harris as the best-looking US attorney general.
In the Senate, Harris is likely to oppose almost everything President-elect Donald Trump proposes. California has more military veterans than any other state. Over the years, the US Department of Veterans Affairs has been plagued by scandal and budget crises, resulting in delays in providing medical care and disability benefits. As attorney general (A-G), Harris formed a working group to fight scams and other predatory conduct uniquely targeting service members, and secured enhanced protections for active-duty and Veteran homeowners during the foreclosure crisis. She believes the US has a moral obligation to responsibly resettle refugees who flee violence and oppression in their own country. As A-G, she brought together California’s top law firms and secured millions of dollars and thousands of hours worth of free legal aid to help unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America for the US. Trump would prefer to ship them back where they came from.
In her political career, if Harris has been criticised, it is for being too cautious. She believes this is because she believes justice, and not ideology, must be served. She might have Indian genes but is ultimately an American, Democrat, woman.
