About Kamala
In her own words "While, I may be the first, I won't be the last," that was how the First Female, African-American(Black), Indian Vice President-Elect soon to be the 48th Vice President of the United States spoke on Saturday November 8th to the entire world about her newest milestone and stepping stone into the American and World Politics as Joe Biden and her accepted their newest nominations.
Kamala (pronounce comma-lah) Harris is an American politician and attorney born in Oakland, California on October 20th, 1964, to Indian-Tamil born mother Shyamala Gopalan who was a breast cancer researcher, whose work on the progesterone receptor gene stimulated work in breast cancer research and biologist and Jamaican-born Donald Harris a Stanford University professor emeritus of economics. She is the oldest of two with younger sister Maya Harris. Just like her elder sister, Maya Harris is also a lawyer and public policy advocated having worked on Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign
Her parents divorced when the senator was five schooled at and at age 12 due to their mother's work and research at McGill University in Montreal, QC, Canada the family moved to Canada where VP-elect attended French-speaking primary school, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, and later Westmount High School in Westmount, Quebec, graduating in 1981.
She later joined Howard University ( a historical Black College and University) in Washington, DC "A childhood dream come true for her," where she studied political science and economics and pledged to the Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority Inc (one of America's oldest black sorority). During her time at the university, Ms. Harris did her first ever successive office campaign during her freshman year as Class Representative. She spent her years at Howard forging her work ethic and political experience.
In an interview with Essence Magazine, The Vice President-Elect explained that her time at Howard taught her how to soar. She maintains that the years she spent on the D.C. campus developed her for the role she’d play in life and helped her create the identity she would eventually present to the world. Much of that, Harris says, is because Howard ensured there was no excuse to fail. It’s an attribution, she contends, can be ascribed to all Black colleges and universities which have for years played an indelible role in the fabric of this country.
“There’s something special about the investment that an HBCU places in its students,” the staunch HBCU advocate says. “It’s about the nurturing. It’s about refining. It’s about all that goes into making someone transition from being a child into an adult. And in that way, it’s very tough love.”
She then joined the University of California to attend law school at Hastings College of the Law. During her time there, she served as president of its chapter of the Black Law Students Association. She graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1989 and was admitted to the California Bar in June 1990.
Ms. Harris began working as a prosecutor for Alameda County district attorney's office for eight years. In 1994 she was appointed by California Assembly speaker Willie Brown to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission.
In 1998, she was recruited by San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan as an assistant district attorney. There, she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys, where she prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases – particularly three-strikes cases. In 2000, it was reported that Ms. Harris clashed with Hallinan's assistant, Darrell Salomon, over Proposition 21 ("Prop 21"), which would have granted prosecutors the option of trying juvenile defendants in Superior Court rather than juvenile courts. Harris campaigned against the measure and Salomon opposed directing media inquiries about Prop 21 to Harris and reassigned her, a de facto demotion. Harris filed a complaint against Salomon and quit.
In August 2000, Harris took a new job at San Francisco City Hall, working for city attorney Louise Renne. Ms. Harris ran the Family and Children's Services Division representing child abuse and neglect cases. Renne endorsed Harris during her D.A. campaign.
In 2003, she marked her first political and judiciary milestones becoming the First person of color elected as San Francisco's district attorney after a tough campaign between her and her former boss Hallinan, where she charged his office for not doing enough to stem the city's gun violence, particularly in poor neighborhoods like Bayview and the Tenderloin, and attacked his willingness to accept plea bargains in cases of domestic violence.
In 2011, she became California's State Attorney general, earning more milestones to her shoulder as the First woman, the first African American, and the first South Asian American to hold the post for two mandates until 2017.
In 2014, she got married to corporate attorney Douglas Emhoff and became step mother to his two children Ella and Cole Emhoff
In 2017, she won against congresswoman and fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez in the general election becoming Federal senator and vowed to continue protecting immigrants against the then President-Elect Trump's policy. She served on the Senate’s Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, among many others.
Outside of the political and judiciary world, Ms. Harris is also a published author, with three books: A children's book Superheroes are Everywhere; a memoir, We Hold These Truths: An American Journey and Smart on Crime
On August 11th, 2020, Presidential Democrat candidate Joe Biden announced that Ms. Kamala Harris was his chosen running mate during the Democratic Convention.
