The 55-year-old first time senator, Kamala Devi Harris from California is the first woman of Asian descent to be elected first Black and South Asian Vice President to hold that office. Kamala’s roots go back to India because her mother Shyamala Gopalan hailed from Chennai. She met and married Kamala’s father Donald Harris, Jamaican student at the University of California at Berkeley in a hugely “progressive” decision taken by the family in an “inter-racial union’. Shyamala Gopalan was a cancer researcher, who raised Harris and the younger daughter Maya Harris, as a single mother mostly after early separation from Donald Harris. Shyamala passed away in 2009. Kamala’s grandfather PV Gopalan remained a guiding light in Kamala’s life imparting values of civic mindedness, public service and human rights. Some of Harris’ fondest memories from childhood were walking along the beach with him after he retired and lived in Besant Nagar, in what was then called Madras.
She has been a county district attorney; the district attorney for San Francisco - the first woman and first African-American and Indian-origin to be elected to the position. A decade ago, journalist Gwen Ifill called Harris "the female Barack Obama" on the "Late Show With David Letterman". Later, a small businessman from Willoughby Tony Pinto called her "a young, female version of the president".
Harris went to college in the US, spending four years at Howard University, and then went on to pursue a law degree at the University of California, Hastings, and began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. She became the top prosecutor for San Francisco in 2003, before being elected the first woman and the first black person to serve as California's attorney general in 2010, the top lawyer in America's most populous state. Harris has been married to her husband Douglas Emhoff, a lawyer, for the past six years. She is the stepmother of two children, Ella and Cole. In her mighty speech Harris affirmed that she’s here to stay and pave the way for the future women. She said, “But while I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
