I was curious about Kamala’s parents and decided to read about them. Kamala has Indian and Jamaican roots but was born and raised in California. Both parents brilliant. Both social justice warriors.
“He would turn to my mother and say, ‘Just let her run, Shyamala,’” she recalls in the book. “And then he’d turn to me and say, ‘Run, Kamala. As fast as you can. Run!’” Kamala Harris
From People Magazine:
Shyamala was raised in India, and at the time, there was little opportunity for women who wanted to study science. She applied to UC Berkeley to pursue a degree in biochemistry and her dreams of curing cancer. Despite never having left India, her father agreed to pay for her first year of tuition using some of his retirement savings, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Donald grew up in Jamaica — before the country gained independence from the U.K. — and had attended British-run schools all his life. By the time he decided to pursue a doctorate in economics, he was looking for something different and was drawn to the U.S., which appeared to be a “lively and evolving dynamic of a racially and ethnically complex society,” he recalled to The New York Times.
When Donald and Shyamala arrived on campus around the same time, they joined a Black students’ study group, later known as the Afro-American Association. Although Shyamala was not Black, she grew up as a British colonial subject in India and as a person of color, and members told The New York Times that she was “accepted as part of the group.”
During one of these meetings, Donald and Shyamala crossed paths for the first time. After he gave a speech about growing up under British colonial power in Jamaica, she introduced herself.
“This was all very interesting to me, and, I daresay, a bit charming. At a subsequent meeting, we talked again, and at the one after that. The rest is now history,” he told the outlet.
Kamala Harris in 1970, aged about six, with her mother and younger sister in Berkeley. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, went to Berkeley in 1958 as a 19 year old student from India
From Today:
Harris has said she inherited her parents’ passion for fighting for civil rights and social justice. In her memoir, the vice president says her parents often brought her in a stroller to civil rights marches.
“I have young memories of a sea of legs moving about, of the energy and shouts and chants. Social justice was a central part of family discussions,” she writes.
“My mother would laugh telling a story she loved about the time when I was fussing as a toddler,” she continues. “‘What do you want?’ she asked, trying to soothe me. ‘Fweedom!’ I yelled back.”
Harris says her mom and godmother marched against the Vietnam War and saw Martin Luther King Jr. speak at UC Berkeley.
She adds that she learned from her mother that it “was service to others that gave life purpose and meaning.
Both articles are comprehensive and interesting. Thanks for reading.
We are so lucky to have Kamala. Not all heroes wear capes.
