Who are Kamala Harris’ parents, and how did they inspire the 2024 presidential hopeful? Jamaican-born Donald J. Harris and Indian Shyamala Gopalan met at UC Berkeley, then had prominent careers
Just this week, current US Vice-President Kamala Harris emerged as the Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. Within days of the news that current US President Joe Biden would bow out of the race, Kamala gained the endorsem*nt of multiple high ranking Democrats, including former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former president and first lady Bill and Hillary Clinton, and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Before her nomination though, she made history as the first Black and first South Asian person to serve as veep. So just who are her parents who helped her get here?
In 1962, Jamaican-born Donald J. Harris and Shyamala Gopalan, who hails from India, met as students at the University of California, Berkeley, and quickly fell in love. Both had arrived as immigrants and went on to forge groundbreaking careers and become leaders in their respective fields. Fast forward to more than 60 years later and the firstborn daughter of these two high-achieving intellectuals may just become the first female president of the United States.
In just a few weeks, all eyes will be on the city of Chicago as it hosts the Democratic National Convention in August. The focus will be squarely on Kamala as she campaigns for the party’s official nomination as its candidate in the upcoming US elections, ready to take the fight to Republican ex-president Donald Trump.
Here’s what you need to know about the two people who shaped Kamala Harris into who she is today.
Kamala Harris’ parents both left home for an American education
According to The New York Times, Gopalan had ambitions of becoming a biochemist and curing cancer. But as a woman in a recently postcolonial India, she was limited to studying “home sciences” at the British-founded Lady Irwin College. When her brother told her that women could apply for biochemistry degrees in the US, she came up with a plan to pursue her dreams. Despite having never left India before, she applied to UC Berkeley. When she received her acceptance letter, her surprised father, a civil servant, agreed to dig into his retirement savings to pay for her first year’s tuition, per People.
On the other side of the world, Donald made the decision to work towards a doctorate with the help of a prestigious scholarship, per the same publication. Most recipients of this scholarship studied in Britain, since the grant was administered by the British colonial government. But having had his fill of British culture, Donald was drawn to the more diverse and complex US. He was particularly interested in studying at UC Berkeley because he’d seen a news story about students from the campus going to the American South to campaign for civil rights.
How did Kamala Harris’ parents meet?
At UC Berkeley, both Donald and Gopalan found their way to a Black intellectual study group that would eventually become the Afro-American Association, “the most foundational institution in the Black Power movement”, reported The New York Times.
The pair crossed paths at one of the group’s meetings in 1962. He was giving a speech about the similarities between his native Jamaica and the United States, which she found compelling. Curious to know more, Gopalan introduced herself to Donald after his speech.
When did Kamala Harris’ parents get married?
According to People, Gopalan had always planned to return to India after getting her degree, but meeting Donald took her life in a different direction. He became her first boyfriend and, in 1963, a year after they met, the couple got married. Soon, they had two children – Kamala, who was born in California in October 1964, and her sister Maya, who arrived in 1967.
Breaking barriers in cancer research and economic theory
After getting her doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology, Gopalan set out to fulfil her dream of curing cancer. She began her career in the cancer research lab of UC Berkeley’s zoology department and went on to become a distinguished research scientist who worked at some of the world’s top research institutions. According to the Breast Cancer Action organisation, Gopalan’s “work in isolating and characterising the progesterone receptor gene transformed the medical establishment’s understanding of the hormone-responsiveness of breast tissue”.
Meanwhile, Donald, an accomplished economist, served as a professor at Stanford University from 1972 to 1998. Per his Stanford University biography, “his research and publications have centred on exploring the analytical conception of the process of capital accumulation and its implications for a theory of growth of the economy, with the aim of providing thereby an explanation of the intrinsic character of growth as a process of uneven development”.
Kamala Harris’ parents eventually got divorced
Per People, Kamala was nearly five years old when she realised that there was trouble in her parents’ marriage. The couple eventually divorced in 1972 – eight years after their wedding. Decades later, in her 2018 memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Kamala reflected that her parents had “become like oil and water”. Gopalan raised Kamala and her sister Maya “mostly on her own”.
In a piece written for Jamaica Global, Donald said that the couple had a “hard-fought custody battle”, stating that the “court-ordered divorce settlement [was] based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parenting”. Racism around his status as a Black man from the Caribbean didn’t help, he added.
What was Kamala Harris’ relationship with her mum like?
Kamala has been open about her close relationship with her mother, often writing about how Gopalan motivated her to follow her dreams. In a 2022 Facebook post, Kamala said her mother would often say to her: “You may be the first to do many things. Make sure you are not the last.”
On Instagram, Kamala has praised her mother for teaching her the importance of striving to be better. “She taught us the good old-fashioned value of hard work … She taught us not only to dream, but to do.”
Gopalan died of colon cancer in 2009.
