Kamala Devi Harris will be America’s first
South Asian Vice President
Asian-American Vice President
Graduate of an HBCU elected Vice President
She has a history of trailblazing, having previously been elected California’s first Black district attorney, and then California’s first female Attorney General, Black Attorney General, and Asian-American Attorney General, as well as the first South Asian Attorney General in the nation. When elected to the US Senate in 2016, she became the second Black woman, first Indian American, and first South Asian American to do so, as well as the first Black woman to represent California in the Senate.
She is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. Her name, Kamala (pronounced Comma-La, if you still don’t know), comes from the Sanskrit word for the lotus flower. Her Jewish stepchildren know her as “Momala”, playing on her name and the Yiddish word for “little mama”. She grew up attending both a Hindu temple and Baptist church. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, raised her and her other daughter Maya as black women, guided by the social realities of race in America that would look at and judge Kamala and Maya through the lens of Blackness.
She graduated from Howard University, a historically black college/university, in 1986. There, she chaired the economics society, was on the debate team, and was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, founded in 1908 as the first sorority for black women. Other historic members of Alpha Kappa Alpha have included Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King.
Criticism of Kamala’s record is absolutely valid, and I completely understand the concerns that many have. We should all hold her and Joe accountable while in office.
That being said, I want to celebrate what her election symbolizes and means to so many and for us not to minimize the importance of representation for young girls and children of color who can look at our government and think that they belong there, too. Representation matters.
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