Kamala Harris
Harris in 2014, photo by DFree/Bigsotck.com
Birth Name: Kamala Iyer/Devi Harris
Place of Birth: Oakland, Alameda, California, United States
Date of Birth: October 20, 1964
Ethnicity:
*father – Jamaican
*mother – Tamil Indian
Kamala Harris is an American politician and attorney. She is the Vice President of the United States, having been inaugurated on January 20, 2021. She was elected to the position in 2020. She is the first woman to serve as President or Vice President of the U.S. She has also been District Attorney of San Francisco, from January 8, 2004 to January 3, 2011, Attorney General of California, from January 3, 2011 to January 3, 2017, and a U.S. Senator from California, from January 3, 2017 to January 18, 2021.
She is the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 2024.
She was also a candidate for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
Vice President Harris is the daughter of Shyamala (Gopalan), a cancer researcher, breast cancer specialist, and civil rights activist, and Donald Jasper Harris, an economics professor at Stanford University. She was born as Kamala Iyer Harris, though her middle name was changed to Devi.
Her father is Jamaican, born in Kingston, Surrey, to parents who both had African ancestry; he came to the U.S. in 1961. Her mother was an emigrant from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, of Tamil Indian descent; she came to the U.S. in 1958. Her name Kamala comes from the Sanskrit word for the lotus flower. A picture of Vice President Harris’s parents can be seen here. A video of Vice President Harris’s father can be seen here, and a picture of him can be seen here. A picture of Vice President Harris, her sister, and their mother can be seen here.
Vice President Harris identifies with both her African and Indian ancestry. She has stated:
My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters… knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.
Vice President Harris is the second U.S. President or Vice President to have a parent who was born in Jamaica. George M. Dallas, who was Vice President, from March 4, 1845 to March 4, 1849, was the first. Both of their fathers had been born in Kingston. Vice President Harris is the third person of significant non-white descent to be nominated for U.S. President or Vice President by a major party, after Vice President Charles Curtis, who served from 1929 to 1933, and whose mother was of considerable Native American ancestry, and President Barack Obama, who served from 2009 to 2017, and whose father was a Luo Kenyan.
Vice President Harris is married to entertainment lawyer Douglas Emhoff. Douglas is Ashkneazi Jewish.
Vice President Harris’s sister is Maya Harris, a lawyer and public policy advocate. Maya is married to Tony West, who has served as U.S. Associate Attorney General. Maya’s daughter, Vice President Harris’s niece, is lawyer and children’s book author Meena Harris.
She was raised partly in Champaign, Illinois, and elsewhere in the midwest, before moving back to Berkeley. As a child, Vice President Harris participated in Berkeley’s busing program, as part of desegregation. During her childhood, her parents divorced. When she was twelve, she moved with her mother and sister to Montréal, Québec, Canada, where her mother worked. Vice President Harris was raised attending both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. She is now a member of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Vice President Harris has said:
…if you walked on Hampton’s campus, or Howard’s campus, or Morehouse or Spelman or Fisk [historically black colleges], you would have a much better appreciation for the diaspora, for the diversity, for the beauty in the diversity of who we are as black people… I’m not going to spend my time trying to educate people about who black people are… I am black and I am proud of it… I was born black and I’ll die black and I am proud of it. And I am not gonna make any excuses for it, for anybody, because they don’t understand.
She was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2020 (sharing the award with her presidential nominee Joe Biden).
Vice President Harris’s paternal grandfather was Oscar Joseph Harris (the son of Joseph Alexander Harris and Christiana A. “Miss Chrishy” Brown). Oscar was born in Orange Hill, St Ann Parish, Jamaica. Vice President Harris’s great-grandfather Joseph was a land owner and agriculture exporter. Vice President Harris’s grandfather Oscar was said to be descended from Hamilton Brown, a plantation and slave owner, who founded the city Brown’s Town, where Oscar’s family lived; Hamilton was born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is not clear if this line of descent is accurate. The veracity of Vice President Harris’s descent from this Hamilton Brown is discussed here.
Vice President Harris’s paternal grandmother was Beryl Christie Finegan (the daughter of Patrick Alhanasous Finegan and Orah Iris Allen). Patrick was born in Thatchfield, St Ann Parish, the son of Patrick Finegan/Fenegon, who may have been Irish; and of Mary Watson. Iris was the daughter of John Allen.
Vice President Harris’s maternal grandfather was named Painganadu Venkataraman “P. V.” Gopalan (the son of Venkataraman Iyer and Seethalaksmni/Seethalakshmi). P. V. was born in Thulasendirapuram, Madras Presidency, British India, present-day Mannargudi, Tamil Nadu, India, and was a diplomat for India. He was from a Tamil Brahmin family. Venkataraman was the son of Krishna Iyer and Ahilandeswari Krishnaiyer.
Vice President Harris’s maternal grandmother was named Rajam (the daughter of Meenakshi Ayyar). Rajam was born in Painganadu, Mannargudi. Meenakshi was the daughter of Natesa Ayyar and Janaki Sastrigal.
Vice President Harris is the second woman to be nominated for President of the United States by a major party. Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to launch a notable campaign for a major party’s presidential nomination, in 1964, for the Republican Party. Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to have been nominated for Vice President of the United States by a major party, the Democratic Party, in 1984, and Hillary Clinton is the first woman to have been nominated for the Presidency by a major party, the Democratic Party, in 2016. Shirley Chisholm won three non-traditional presidential nominating contests in 1972, for the Democratic Party; Hillary Clinton and Nikki Haley have since been the only women to have won a major party’s presidential nominating contest, with Clinton winning 23 in 2008 and 34 in 2016, for the Democratic Party, and Nikki Haley winning 2 primaries in 2024, for the Republican Party.
Four black Americans have won a caucus and/or primary for a major American political party’s presidential nomination. The four are:
*Walter E. Fauntroy (1972; Democratic; won Washington, D.C.)
*Shirley Chisholm (1972; Democratic; won 3 contests, including New Jersey)
*Jesse Jackson (Democratic; in 1984, he won 2+ states; in 1988, he won 9+ states)
*Barack Obama (Democratic; in 2008, he won 29+ states; in 2012, he won 50+ states)
Vice President Harris is one of several Asian-Americans to mount a notable campaign for a major political party’s nomination for President of the United States. The others were/are:
*Hiram Fong (who sought the 1964 and 1968 Republican nominations; Fong was of Chinese descent)
*Patsy Mink (who sought the 1972 Democratic nomination; Mink was of Japanese descent)
*Bobby Jindal (who sought the 2016 Republican nomination; Jindal is of Punjabi Indian descent)
*Andrew Yang (who sought the 2020 Democratic nomination; Yang’s parents are Taiwanese)
*Nikki Haley (2024; Republican; won 2 contests; Haley is of Punjabi Indian descent)
*Vivek Ramaswamy (who sought the 2024 Republican nomination; Ramaswamy is of Tamil Indian descent)
Vice President Harris is one of five people who were at least partly raised in the Hindu faith, or a Hindu-related faith, to run for a major party’s presidential nomination. Bobby Jindal, Tulsi Gabbard, who also sought the Democratic Party’s 2020 nomination; Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, are the others. Of the five, only Tulsi and Vivek identify as Hindu presently.
Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com
https://www.latimes.com
https://www.irishecho.com
Biography of Vice President Kamala Harris – http://racerelations.about.com
Articles about Vice President Harris’s parents and childhood – https://www.mercurynews.com
https://www.irishtimes.com
Snopes.com article about Vice President Harris’s Jamaican background – https://www.snopes.com
Article about media treatment of Vice President Harris’s Indian heritage – https://www.poynter.org
Family background of Vice President Harris’s father – https://www.jamaicaglobalonline.com
Birth record of Kamala Harris – https://www.familysearch.org
Genealogies of Vice President Harris – https://www.geni.com
https://1.bp.blogspot.com
https://famouskin.com
Genealogies of Vice President Harris’s paternal grandparents, Oscar Joseph Harris and Beryl Christie (Finegan) Harris – https://www.findagrave.com
Death record of Vice President Harris’s paternal great-grandfather, Joseph Alexander Harris – https://www.familysearch.org
Obituary of Vice President Harris’s mother – http://www.legacy.com
She is very Israel and AIPAC friendly.
She has bearboy/jackson9 support as well as booker
All I’m saying is,to me there’s no difference between her and Mindy kaling’s brother,both claiming black cause its the last and only option they have to succeed in the game.Don’t get me wrong she’s smart but too coy and manipulative for my liking.Hopefully she won’t win.
I don’t think she is going to win. Democratic nominee is most likely going to Tim Ryan, John Delaney, or Marianne Williamson.
Hahaha, good one!
I am clueless about American politics, but I think Delaney has no chance. He does not look Presidential enough.
I follow the debates the best I can and Delaney has no chance, no. Though it’s not because he’s not presidential, if that was so important we wouldn’t have seen the current president enter office.
Thanks madman ;) and in all seriousness the nomination will come down to four people 1. Biden 2. Sanders 3. Warren 4. Kamala… I can’t see any other Democrat winning it.
Yes, I also believe one of those four is the most likely scenario. Not in that order, though.
Another incredibly stupid post from you.
Are you talking about my Democratic nominee prediction or my post about Zionism?
It wasn’t a reply to you; that should be clear.
@Jaclyn She is not claiming black. Kamala IS Black. Her dad is black and South Asian is not an actual race. South Asians are highly mixed which includes African. Research it. I dont know why people consider South Asian a race. Theyre like hispanics just mixed people.
Even the biracial offsprings of Dravidian/white resemble that of African/white,for example Liza koshy(half Dravidian half white)can’t pass as any of her races but as a brown mulatto/black girl.I feel for kamala,it must be sad to find yourself not being able to pass/fit into any of her races,so black is the closest fit for her.I know race is a social construct but when will society learn that certain mixed race just can’t fit into any of their races swiftly.
@Jaclyn 224 Some of your arguement makes sense other parts I disgaree. Yes Dravidian South Asian Tamils do have African admixture and relation. Everyone came out of Africa. The first Africans from East Africa migrated to India. I disagree with your comparison to Mindy Kalings brother because Kamala is different. Kamala actually has a black Jamaican dad.
To be fair,davidians descend from Africa that’s why they pass as black,so I’m not surprised that she takes after her mother.Even the biracial offsprings of
Dravidians are genetically very far from Africans of any kind.
No such thing as “Indian Cushite” exists.
Same dialect and culture as tamils/dravidians?? Gimme a break.
@Andrew not true. There are West Africans now who share common words with Tamil Indians. You can easily google this info. I dont know why people constantly deny the connection with Africa and Indiaa, you can see in thier skin tone and many faces in India are indistinguishable from East Africans. Frankly her moms face looks very Ethiopian to me. Its only that her hair is straighter.
South India has West African dna too. Dark skin comes from Africa and everyone originated from Africa so yes Dravidians will be related to Africans.
@Andrew Dravidians are very related to East Africans. They are not far. The Kingdom of Ethiopia extended far into South Asia. Millions of East Africans migrated to South Asia. Also Arabs later bought East African slaves to South Asia. Soutb Asian is not an actual race. South Asian are made up of multiple races including African.
@Jaclyn224 Kamala does not look more like her mom. Where are you from? Kamala looks like the average Afro Carribean. Her sister Maya looks more like thier mom. I should know. Her background is similiar to alot of people in my family.
She is half india. Enough. India locates in Asia not Africa. I dont care about the dna. Meaningless. We are human and same species. We are homo sapiens so we are the same.
She looks Indian too me.She looks like a dark brown Archie panjabi.
@Jaclyn224 Kamala looks more African Carribean. I dont see what youre seeing. Kamala straightens her hair its super curly and her sister Maya is much darker . Her niece and sister married African Americans. You must not see too many black people of Carribean and African American descent but she doesnt look more Indian at all. Kamala looks more like her black Jamaican dad.