Time: What She Brings

By Anne Deavere Smith

    Many have noted how, in January, Kamala Harris will become the first woman,  first Black person, and first Indian American to become vice president. But beyond that, we need to look at who she is.

"it is her mother, a noted cancer researcher, who is frequently evoked as Harris’ influence and inspiration. 'When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment,' Harris said in her victory speech on Nov. 7. 'But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible.'"

    Her grandfather was a civil servant whose passion for democracy in India's independence movement inspired her. She is not the only one in her family to be highly educated.

“When she became a Senator, I went and told her, ‘Kamala, you are a diamond in the family,’ ” said Sarala Gopalan, a gynecologist, “and she just said to me, ‘Chitti, I am not a diamond, I am a diamond amongst diamonds in the family.’”

She is also a staunch civil rights activist. She helped draft an anti-lynching bill on the day of George Floyd's first funeral service, and she had previously tried to get Black rights legislation passed in her sorority at Howard.

"These are just a few examples of how examining Harris’ specific experiences and relationships...they are a reminder that the U.S. will not only have its first Vice President who is a Black and Indian-American woman, as important as those milestones are. Harris is standing on a firm foundation of service, courage, struggle, passion, intellectual rigor and hope."