Her mother's daughter: How Kamala Harris' speech foregrounded her childhood
India has become the flavour of the US presidential elections. For the first time, two Americans of Indian origin, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, figured as possible candidates for the presidential elections. When JD Vance became former President Donald Trump's running mate, spotlight fell on his wife Usha Vance, an Indian American and practicing Hindu. With the nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency, once again India has come to foreground.
In her speech on Thursday night in which she formally accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, Harris spoke at length about her childhood days when she was raised by her mother Shymala Gopalan alone, who had divorced from her Jamaican American husband.
What Harris said about her mother
Harris started her speech by remembering her mother. «But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys. So, my mother, our mother, Shyamala Harris, had one of her own. And I miss her every day, and especially right now. And I know she’s looking down smiling. I know that,» she said.
Harris said her mother was just 19 when she travelled from India to California with «an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer».
«When she finished school, she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage,» Harris spoke of her mother. «But as fate would have it, she met my father, Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and got married, and that act of self-determination made my sister, Maya, and
