Is Kamala Harris Indian-Jamaican? Here's all about her ancestry and nationality you need to know
Criticizing Joe Biden's previous racial stances, Kamala Harris made headlines at the first Democratic debate back in 2019. “As the only Black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said at that point. And now, on Tuesday, August 11, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate named Kamala as his vice-presidential running mate, thus making history by selecting the first woman of color to compete for a major party's presidential election ticket.
Just like Obama's US citizenship and background became a full-fledged conspiracy theory, Kamala was also targeted with questions on her race and legitimacy as a US citizen back in 2019. As per the New York Times, after her 2019 instance with Biden, a huge controversy ensued regarding her heritage, when Ali Alexander, a member of a right-wing constellation of media personalities, wrote on Twitter in a since-deleted post, "Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican. I'm so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. It's disgusting.” Later, Donald Trump Jr, president Donald Trump's eldest son, shared Ali's tweet with his millions of followers. He retweeted, saying “Is this true? Wow.” By the end of the night, he deleted his retweet, and in a couple of days, his spokesman said it had all been a misunderstanding.
In her autobiography titled 'The Truths We Hold: An American Journey', she wrote, "My name is pronounced "Comma-la", like the punctuation mark."
According to a report by Washington Post, Kamala addresses herself as American. She credits that largely to a Hindu immigrant single mother Shyamala Gopalan who adopted African culture and immersed her daughters in it. She grew up living a proud African-American life, but also embraced her Indian culture. Shyamala was keenly attracted to the African-American culture and the civil rights movements. Even though the family ate Indian food, wore Indian jewelry, they worshipped at an African-American church, Shyamala even protested with her Jamaican husband Donald Harris, a prominent former Economics professor at Stanford. Later after her divorce, she continued protesting with Kamala and her younger sister Maya Harris. Kamala visited his father and his family back in Jamaica several times and kept in touch. But she always credited her mother for shaping their lives. Kamala told Washington Post her mother was “most responsible for shaping us into the women we would become.”
Shyamala was born in Chennai and graduated from Delhi University and later applied for a graduate program at Berkeley. She left India in 1958 to pursue a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology and later became a breast cancer researcher. Remembering the civil rights movements of 1960, Kamala shared a throwback picture a few months back, titled, "My parents marched and shouted in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. It’s because of them and the folks who also took to the streets to fight for justice that I am where I am. They laid the path for me, as only the second bi-racial woman ever elected to the United States Senate. Years later, we are still fighting for justice and to confront the systemic racism that has plagued our country since its earliest days. But the power of this movement cannot be denied. Change is possible."
"I’m the daughter of a mother who broke down all kinds of barriers. Shyamala Harris was no more than five feet tall, but if you ever met her you would think she was seven feet tall. She had such spirit and tenacity and I’m thankful every day to have been raised by her," she wrote on Mother's Day on an Instagram post. Shyamala passed away in 2009.
Kamala was born in Oakland, California on October 20, 1964. Her mother chose Kamala’s name keeping in mind their Indian roots. Kamala means “lotus” and is another name for the Hindu goddess Lakshmi. She told Washington Post back in 2019, “It’s not about me. It’s about the people I represent.” She said that presidential political campaigns require the candidates to explain their heritage and background so voters “can figure out why you do what you do.” So while she “was raised not to talk about myself,” she said that is why she wrote her book to lay out the details of her heritage and career.