The 17 Things You Didn't Know About Kamala Harris
The brand new vice president of the United States for the Democrats is a quarrelsome ex-prosecutor, daughter of a Jamaican and Indian, home and fan of 'The Wire'.
Kamala Harris has made history. She is already the first woman in the second highest echelon of her country's politics. She was fighting for the vice presidency of the United States in the elections on November 3, completing the poster of the candidate for the Democratic Party to the White House, Joe Biden. And he has won: if he is the newly elected president, she is already the number two in the Government of the most powerful country in the world. The new Mike Pence, the Republican who comes out with the defeat of Donald Trump.
Did you know this about her?
1.- She was born in Oakland (California), on October 20, 1964 and her full name is Kamala Devi Harris. Kamala means "lotus flower" in Sanskrit and is pronounced like this:
2.- Her parents are two university professors. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a Tamil, was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated from India in the 1960s to pursue a Ph.D. in endocrinology at the University of California-Berkeley. She died in 2009. Her father, Donald Harris, was born in Jamaica, is black and was a professor at Stanford University.
3.- Her parents separated when Kamala was 12 years old and both she and her sister, Maya (a political adviser to Democrats like Bill Clinton), went to live with their mother. For work reasons, they had to move to Canada for a time. That and the constant trips to Asia and Jamaica to see the family soon forged her open spirit.
4.- One of her life mottos was taught to her by her mother: “She often said to me: 'Kamala, you could be the first to achieve many things. Make sure you're not the last. ' And I try ”.
5.- At Westmount High School in Quebec, she was a popular and diligent student. As a teenager, she co-founded a small dance company of six dancers who performed at a community center and fundraisers, sang in a choir, cleaned her mother's test tubes, cooked Indian food, and wove blankets while watching TV. "A crochet freak, always homey," says her sister.
6.- Harris studied a double degree in Political Science and Economics at Howard University, one of the prominent African-American centers of higher education in the country. She then went to the University of California, Hastings, to pursue a law degree. "She was smart as a lynx," her teachers say about her.
7.- Her first job was in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. She then became a San Francisco district attorney in 2003, before becoming the first woman and the first black woman to win the job of California attorney general, the top law enforcement officer in the state.
8.- During this period, in 2014 she married Douglas Emhoff, a partner at the DLA Piper law firm and specialized in the media and entertainment industry. They met on a blind date, years after Emhoff got divorced. After dating for just over a year, he proposed to her on his knees. At their wedding, Indian flower necklaces from the bride's culture and the trampled vase from the groom's Jewish tradition were mixed. She is a Baptist. Harris has two adult stepchildren: Cole and Ella, with whom their relationship is excellent. They call her "momala", they don't like stepmother, and she wears that word, proud, on her Twitter profile. With her in-laws, very good. And she has a niece who is almost like her daughter.
9.- After two terms in the prosecution, Harris decided to jump into the political pool and soon gained the reputation of rising star of the Democratic Party, prompting him to become a senator for California in 2017. “I thought that as a prosecutor I could change the things. I have seen that it is so. Now I want to try it from politics, "he said. The launch of her candidacy for the presidency, last year, was before 20,000 people.
10.- He had to leave the race for the White House due to lack of money. “My campaign for president simply does not have the financial resources we need to continue. I am not a billionaire. I cannot finance my own campaign ”, he justified. Her popularity had grown mainly due to the forcefulness of her interventions in the debates, even against her current partner Biden, but the support was oscillating, at the same rate that her own positions varied. Republicans attack her for being inconsistent in her proposals.
11.- Of herself she affirms that she is “progressive”. She has committed herself to same-sex marriage and has fought against the death penalty, but she does not belong to the "socialist" branch that was growing strong in her party, she is "moderate". The burden of her past weighs heavily on her, criticized for having almost never prosecuted police officers who have murdered civilians, especially now in the context of Black Live Matters.
12.- Her mother raised her sister and her as members of the black community, despite their mixture. She shows off that blackness and serves her, she says, to “commit” even more to the causes of “ignored people”. She is a member of a prominent black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. Her sisters have been essential in raising funds and organizing her campaign.
13.- One of the reasons why she has finally been chosen by Biden is her friendship with the former vice president's son, Beau. Deceased in 2015 from a brain tumor, a prosecutor too, greatly admired Kamala, with whom he worked closely. "There is no opinion that I value more than Beau's, so I am proud that Kamala is with me in this campaign," Biden has written.
14.- Donald Trump says of her that she is "the worst, the most horrible, the most disrespectful of all in the Senate."
15.- She has the support of numerous Hollywood artists, after passing through California: Eva Longoria, Reese Whiterspoon, Jennifer Garner, Mindy Kaling, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Whoopi Goldberg ...
16.- He loves music. She created a list of her favorites for our fellow HuffPost USA, including A Tribe Called Quest, Lauryn Hill, The Notorious BIG, Childish Gambino and Andra Day ... "Black Power." Her favorite books are Kites in the Sky, by Khaled Hosseini, and The Dreams of My Father, by Barack Obama. In movies, action and dramas: Logan, Black Panther, Steel Magnolias, A star is born ... And she is a fan of The Wire and 24 series.
17.- You can find out more about her in her autobiography -published even before fighting for the vice-presidency-, The truths we hold, from 2019.
