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Kamala Harris’ History: Family, Origins, and More

Let’s discover together Kamala Harris’ blended family and origins! Will her past help her win the elections?

Kamala Harris’s family background is an important aspect of her identity since it reflects a rich blend of cultures and experiences. Growing up with immigrant parents who were deeply committed to civil rights has shaped her views on social justice, equality, and diversity.

On the other hand, Kamala Harris’s past jobs influenced a lot her behavior and perspective on how our country should be managed. Her experience as a former prosecutor, as a U.S. Senator, and her tenure as Vice President provide her with significant political experience and name recognition.

Kamala Harris
Image by Sir. David from Shutterstock

Is important to know her as well as we can before choosing who we are voting with. So, here is what we found out about Harris’ family and origins:

Her parents were civil rights activists

Kamala Harris’ father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian. Her mother. Shyamala Gopalan, emigrated from India in 1960 to attend the University of California, Berkeley, and pursue a doctorate in endocrinology.

It’s important to note that both of her parents were involved in the Civil Rights Movement.

Harris proudly shared on her social media accounts that her parents are why she chose to take to the streets to fight for justice. Her parents laid the path for her and she became the second Black woman ever elected to the United States Senate. That is when Harris began to write history.

Even though the fight for justice continues, Kamala Harris strongly believes change is possible.

When she was just 7 years old, her parents decided to divorce. Harris wrote in her book, “The Truths We Hold” that they didn’t have serious reasons to fight about and never fought about money. The parents took different paths but her father remained a part of their lives. Harris and her sister lived with their mother who shaped them into the women they both became.

Donald Harris was a professor at Standford University and he taught economics classes. He had great success in his career, allowing him to travel and teach across the globe. He has also served as an economic consultant to the Government of Jamaica. He retired from Standford in 1998.

Harris never spoke much about her father, but she always mentions her mother, a breast cancer scientist, who passed away from colon cancer in 2009.

This is what Harris recently wrote on her Instagram about her beloved mother: “I’m the daughter of a mother who broke down all kinds of barriers. Shyamala Harris was no more than five feet tall, but if you ever met her you would think she was seven feet tall. She had such spirit and tenacity and I’m thankful every day to have been raised by her.”

In another post, she talked about what her mother used to ask her whenever she went home complaining about something. She’d say “Well what are you gonna do about it?”. So, this time, Kamala Harris decided to run for President of the United States.

Harris misses her mother very much and she wishes she were with her to witness her powerful accomplishments.

Kamala Harris
Image by Group Pictures from Shutterstock

She is close to her relatives in India

Harris visited India multiple times with her mother. She loved spending time there, with her grandfather and his buddies on their morning walk along the beach. Even in those free times, they used to talk about important subjects such as democracy and civil rights.

In 2019, at a Democratic Party Convention, she said that she comes from a family of fighters.

Her sister is a close political advisor

Maya Harris is Kamala’s younger sister. Maya follows with admiration Kamala’s steps into the political world and she often speaks about how proud she is of her sister’s achievements.

She was the campaign chairwoman for Harris’s presidential bid and the two are very close.

“I think most people who know Maya will tell you she’s one of the smartest people they know,” Kamala said in an interview with Politico. “The fact that she has volunteered to work on this campaign at such a high level, and she’s exactly who she’s always been – she works around the clock and she’s probably the hardest if not one of the hardest working people on the campaign – I feel very blessed.”

In 2020 when Kamala Harris joined Joe Biden in the political campaign, Maya insisted that people should discover their mother’s life to understand who Kamala really is and what she can do for the United States.

Kamala Harris
Image by Ringo Chiu from Shutterstock

Harris’s husband is an attorney and she is a step-mother

Douglas Emhoff, 56 is an entertainment lawyer. He and Kamala Harris met on a blind date set up by one of their common friends. They got married in 2014 at the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

Their love is unique and Emhoff has been supportive of his wife since the beginning. He knows how hard it can get for a black woman to fight against white men. So, he was a very important piece in her political journey, being always by her side when she needed support.

Emhoff was married to Kerstin Emhoff and had two children, Cole and Ella, named after jazz legends John Coltrane and Ella Fitzgerald. Harris accepted his children, they have a very strong and beautiful relationship, and she calls Kerstin a “dear friend”.

Kerstin says she is supporting Kamala Harris more enthusiastically than Melania Trump supports her husband in this electoral campaign. Kerstin attended the DNC for the first two days and she already has doubled the appearances Melania made this year for the Republican Party.

For over a decade, Kamala has been part of their life, successfully co-parenting with Doug and Kerstin. Doug’s first wife said that Kamala is “loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present”. She also said multiple times how much she loves their blended family and how grateful she is to have Kamala in it. The children call Harris “Momala” and they represent her as an endless source of love and joy.

“They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults,” Harris said in a recent interview with Elle Magazine. She also said that she was already in love and hooked on Doug, but the children were the ones who reeled her in.

Cole is an executive assistant at Plan B Entertainment and Ella is an avid knitter. Both of them love Kamala endlessly and support her in the electoral campaign.

If you want to find out more information about Kamala Harris’s life, don’t hesitate and purchase her book! It can be found on Amazon and is a bestseller that is selling really fast. Also, make sure you leave a comment and tell us what you think about everything going on in the United States right now. Is Harris’s life experience going to help her win? Or will Trump manage to beat her?

The 2024 elections are really entertaining and is impossible to predict who’s going to win. I guess we’ll have to follow their steps and see what happens. But, most importantly, we have to VOTE! Make sure you encourage your friends and family to do so! Every opinion matters and we shouldn’t let anyone choose for ourselves.

Before leaving, check out another related article: 3 Presidential Affairs Tabloids Tried To Hide.

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