All About Kamala Harris’ Mother, Who Grew Up In India And Moved To US

Kamala Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan was a breast cancer specialist

Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago today and remembered her Indian-origin mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris before a rapturous crowd. Taking center stage on the last day of the Democratic Party convention, she said her mother was only 19 when she crossed the world alone, travelling from India to California with an “unshakeable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer”.

“My mother Shyamala Harris had one of her own. I miss her every day — especially now. And I know she’s looking down tonight, and smiling,” she told the gathering in Chicago.

“… It was mostly my mother who raised us. Before she could finally afford to buy a home, she rented a small apartment in the East Bay. In the Bay, you either live in the hills or the flatlands. We lived in the flats — a beautiful working-class neighbourhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all of whom tended their lawns with pride,” Ms Harris added.

Shyamala Gopalan Harris was a breast cancer specialist who emigrated from Tamil Nadu in 1960 to pursue a doctorate in endocrinology at the University of California Berkeley. 

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“When she finished school, she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage, 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 me,” Ms Harris said in her speech.

Kamala’s sister, Maya Harris, also spoke at the Chicago event and recalled how their mother moved to the US from India to pursue a better life and encouraged her daughters to be “the authors of our own stories.”

“Mommy’s journey, and the opportunity that she wanted for Kamala and me – that’s a distinctly American story,” she said.

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She also mentioned that if their late mother was here, she would say how proud she was of her daughter. Then, “without missing a beat, she’d say, “That’s enough. You’ve got work to do.”

Kamala Harris’ India Connection

Kamala Harris, 59, was born in Oakland, California in 1964 to Afro-Jamaican Donald Harris, who came to the US to study economics, and Shyamala Gopalan.

Her parents met at the University of California, a hub of student activism while participating in the civil rights movement.

Donald Harris is a professor emeritus at Stanford University, while Shyamala Gopalan died of cancer on February 11, 2009, a year before Kamala was elected as California’s attorney general.

After the couple divorced, Shyamala Gopalan raised Kamala and her younger sister Maya.

She took them on trips to India and often expressed affection or frustration in Tamil, Kamala wrote in her 2019 book, “The Truths We Hold.”

Kamala Harris has often spoken about her India connection and the influence of her maternal grandfather, PV Gopalan.

PV Gopalan left Thulasendrapuram, a village in Tamil Nadu decades ago, but residents say the family has maintained close links and has regularly donated to the temple’s upkeep.

Earlier today, Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nomination to fight against her Republican rival Donald Trump. Ms Harris emerged as the Democratic candidate after President Joe Biden, 81, was forced to quit the race for the White House last month. If successful, she will become the first woman elected US president.