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Vice President Kamala Harris has a supportive roster of family members by her side. From her husband, Douglas Emhoff, to her accomplished sister, Maya, and her stepchildren, the history-making politician has taken to social media over the years to share plenty about the loved ones she holds dear.
Essential to her backstory is the biracial identity she inherited from her parents, Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris. Both immigrated to the United States (from India and Jamaica, respectively) to pursue doctorate degrees at the University of California, Berkeley.
“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,” Harris wrote on Instagram in 2020. “They laid the path for me, as only the second Black woman ever elected to the United States Senate.” Of course, Harris soon became the first Black woman to be vice president, too.
Although Harris’s parents eventually divorced in 1971, the two were an accomplished duo. After graduating, her mother went on to become a prominent cancer researcher, while her father remains a professor of economics, emeritus, at Stanford University.
Here’s what we know about the parents who helped shape Harris from a young age.
Shyamala and Donald first met in Berkeley, California, and were active in the civil rights movement.
They both immigrated to the United States to receive doctorate degrees at the University of California, Berkeley. The two “met and fell in love at Berkeley while participating in the civil rights movement,” Harris wrote in her autobiography, The Truths We Hold. “[Shyamala’s] marriage—and her decision to stay in the United States—were the ultimate acts of self-determination and love.”
They even took a young Harris to some of the marches. According to a 2004 Los Angeles Times piece about Harris, “a favorite family story begins with Harris's parents pushing her in a stroller as they marched for civil rights, joining in the protest chants. After one march, Shyamala asked, ‘What do you want, Kamala?’ The toddler replied: ‘Fee-dom!’”
Donald Harris was born in Jamaica and shared that with his daughters as they were growing up.
According to Harris’s 2019 autobiography, Donald was born in Jamaica in 1938 and immigrated to the United States to get his doctorate degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He eventually became a naturalized United States citizen. After teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Donald joined the Stanford department of economics in 1972. He taught there until his retirement in 1998.
In an essay Donald wrote for Jamaica Global Online, he explains how he tried to show his daughters their heritage “through frequent visits to Jamaica and engaging life there in all its richness and complexity.” They visited Orange Hill, an area where Donald spent his childhood. “Upon reaching the top of a little hill that opened much of that terrain to our full view, Kamala, ever the adventurous and assertive one, suddenly broke from the pack...and took off like a gazelle in Serengeti, leaping over rocks and shrubs and fallen branches, in utter joy and unleashed curiosity, to explore that same enticing terrain.”
Kamala Harris’s mom was a prominent breast cancer researcher.
“My mother was a pioneering breast cancer researcher, so I grew up learning about the importance of screening and early detection,” Harris wrote in an Instagram post during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Shyamala’s work led her to many top research institutions, including the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin, the Department of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “She made substantial contributions to the field of hormones and breast cancer, publishing her research in countless journals and receiving numerous honors,” according to Shyamala’s obituary.
Shyamala was the daughter of an Indian diplomat and a women’s rights activist.
In a 2019 Instagram post, Harris wrote, “When I was a young girl visiting my grandparents in India, I’d join my grandfather and his buddies on their morning walk along the beach as they would talk about the importance of fighting for democracy and civil rights. Those walks made me who I am today.”
In addition, Shyamala’s mother Rajam was a role model to the young Harris daughters due to her work for women’s rights. “Kamala comes from a long line of kick-ass women,” Shyamala told the Los Angeles Times in that same 2004 article.
And she raised Harris and her sister as “strong, Black women.”
“My mother was very intentional about raising my sister, Maya, and me as strong, Black women,” Harris noted on social media in 2020. “She coupled her teachings of civic duty and fearlessness with actions, which included taking us on Thursday nights to Rainbow Sign, a Black cultural center near our home. There we were always greeted with warm hugs and exposed to extraordinary people like Shirley Chisholm, Nina Simone, and Maya Angelou who helped show us what we could become.”
Shyamala passed away in 2009.
Reflecting on the day her mom was diagnosed with colon cancer, Harris wrote, “It was one of the worst days of my life.” Despite receiving chemotherapy treatments, Shyamala passed away on February 11, 2009. After her death, Harris said, “Though I miss her every day, I carry her with me wherever I go. I think of the battles she fought, the values she taught me, her commitment to improve healthcare for us all. There is no title or honor on earth I’ll treasure more than to say I am Shyamala Gopalan Harris’s daughter.”
Before her inauguration as vice president, Harris said in an interview with NPR, “I will be thinking about my mother, who is looking down from heaven. I will be thinking about all of the people who are counting on us to lead and are counting on us to see them and to address their needs and the things that keep them up at night. And I’ll be thinking about the fact that we have to hit the ground running immediately to support the people of our country, to support the children of our country, and to help get us out of the crises that we’re facing.”
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