An immigrant’s American dream comes true as Kamala Harris will now hold the second highest office in the US

• With Joe Biden’s win, for the first time in history Kamala Devi Harris – a Black American, Asian American and a woman will be the Vice President of the United States.
• At 56, she also holds the possibility of running for office for the next term.
• Born to immigrant parents – an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father, Harris has been shattering glass ceilings from the get go.

With Joe Biden’s win, for the first time in history Kamala Devi Harris – a Black American, Asian American and a woman, will take her destined chair in the second highest office of the United States of America. It is yet another feather in the cap for Harris, who has lived up to America’s favourite cliches for Asian immigrant families: from being a top student to an overachiever every step of the way in her three-decade long career.

With Joe Biden taking lead in Pennsylvania, it’s all over for Donald Trump and the 77-year old Biden is set to take his place in the White House.

And Harris, who is Biden’s running mate, will be the Vice President-elect of the US. And at 56, she also holds the possibility of running for office for the next term as initially, Harris ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination herself.


Kamala Harris – shattering glass ceilings everywhere

Having studied in the US, from Howard University and then UC Hastings College of the Law, Harris has been shattering glass ceilings from the get go. She was San Francisco's first female district attorney and also went on to become California's first woman of color to be elected attorney general.

Born to immigrant parents – an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father, Harris was born in Oakland, California. Even though she kept her roots in India alive and has visited the country several times, Harris’s cancer researcher and activist mother Shyamala Gopalan had adopted Oakland's black culture.

In her memoir ‘The Truths We Had’, Harris has referred to her journey as the ‘American dream’. “a place where people believed in the most basic tenet of the American Dream: that if you worked hard and do right by the world, your kids will be better of than you were,” she wrote about the place she grew up in.

The Harris legacy

Harris is married to lawyer Douglass Emhoff, who will now be America’s first-ever second-gentleman. Her father Donald Harris was an Economics professor while her sister Maya, who has been one of her biggest supporters, was earlier a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton during her presidential fight in 2016. Maya has also worked with the Ford Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Harris has also famously said that she has always been inspired by her grandfather PV Gopalana, an Indian freedom-fighter, who became a civil servant and was assigned by the Indian government to help Zambia deal with its refugee problem in the late 1960s, according to the IANS.

During her time at the Senate, Harris has been famous for her fearless and feisty line of questioning during hearings. Prominent figures like Attorney General Bill Barr and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have found themselves at the other end of her prosecutorial questions.

Harris’ prosecutorial skills were also seen during the Vice President’s debate, where she brought up issues ranging from race and COVID-19 and also delivered the line that trended for days on Twitter – ‘Mr Vice President I’m speaking’, when she was being constantly interrupted by Vice President Mike Pence.

Kamala Harris on the key issues of America

Harris’s shifting position in the key issues of the country have often been talked about.

On healthcare

Harris had been a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders' 2017 Medicare for All bill but soon backed out of it. She’s now with Biden, who supports former US President Barack Obama’s Obamacare, the affordable care act.

On abortion

Harris has maintained her stance that she is for women’s rights. “I will always fight for a woman’s right to make a decision over her own body. It should be her decision, not that of Donald Trump or Mike Pence,” she had said during the Vice President’s debate.

On Taxation

Harris has outrightly said that if elected to power she will get rid of Trump’s tax cuts. “Joe and I are about to get rid of that tax bill and invest that money in working families, invest that money in infrastructure, building back up our roads and bridges,” the New York Post quoted Harris.