Kamala Harris has been the first to do many things, and she appears to be well on the way to be the first Indian American in the United States Senate. With the unflinching support from President Barack Obama and the entire array of the Democratic Party, that may not be the last first she will achieve.
“Given her stature and the wide respect that she commands among the national party leadership, she is going be very effective as a Senator and she will continue to rise,” says MR Rangaswami, Indian community leader and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, about the the 52-year old Attorney General (AG) of California.
Many firsts
Ms. Harris who became the first woman, first Asian American and the first African American AG of California in 2010, is the favourite to win the Senate race in the State. She has been a confidante of Mr. Obama, who endorsed her in July. “Kamala Harris fights for us. That’s why I’m so proud to endorse her for United States senator,” he said.
But what drives Ms. Harris is a maxim her mother had given her: “You may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.” “And that’s what I’ve worked to do,” Ms. Harris says. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan grew up in Chennai and came to the U.S in the early 1960s. She studied endocrinology and cancer at the University of California at Berkeley where she met Donald, who grew up in Jamaica. They married soon. Kamala and Maya, their two children, took their baby steps straight into politics. As she puts in her bio, “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. My younger sister, Maya, and I grew up around adults who were committed to service and community involvement.” Maya Harris is one of the three senior policy advisers to the Hillary Clinton campaign and is widely expected to take a senior position in the administration if Ms. Clinton wins.
She can understand some Tamil
Ms. Harris has fond memories of her childhood visits to Chennai to meet grandparents, she told a gathering of Indian donors in California recently. “She still understands a bit of Tamil,” Mr. Rangaswami, who had organised the gathering. Ms. Harris went point by point on issues concerning Indian Americans and India-U.S relations.
