Kamala Harris is a breakout star in the Democratic Party during the early stages of the 2020 campaign. When she first appeared on the debate stage for the 2020 election cycle along with the likes of former vice president Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, she was the breakout star of the debate and found momentum in her corner.
Now, everyone is clamoring to know more about the California Senator who is surging in the polls and becoming a serious threat to win the Democratic nomination.
Everything you need to know about the rising political star and presidential candidate can be seen below.
Kamala Harris Ethnicity & Heritage
Kamala Devi Harris was born October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California. Harris is the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a Tamil Indian who was a breast cancer scientist, and Donald Harris, a Stanford University economics professor. Harris’ mother immigrated to the United States from Madras in 1960, while her father emigrated from Jamaica in 1961 to study at the University of California, Berkeley.
“I am black and I am proud of it,” Harris said in a past interview after questions about her race. “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.”
Since emerging as a front-runner during the first Democratic Debate of the 2020 election season, Harris found herself as the subject of birtherism conspiracies.
“Kamala Harris is implying she is descended from American Black Slaves,” Ali Alexander, a member of a right-wing constellation of media personalities, wrote on Twitter. “She’s not. She comes from Jamaican Slave Owners. That’s fine. She’s not an American Black. Period.”
The birtherism conspiracies are similar to the attacks that former president Barack Obama faced throughout his eight years in office.
Kamala Harris Bio
Born: October 20, 194 (age 54)
Harris attended Howard University and majored in political science and economics. She was the liberal arts student council freshman class representative, a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, and member of the debate team. After Howard, Harris earned her Juris Doctor from the University of California’s Hastings College of Law and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1990.
Following her education, Harris was the deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California where she was also the chief of the Community and Neighborhood Division for San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne. She went on to serve as the 27th District Attorney of San Francisco and the 32nd Attorney General of California.
Harris then ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate and won the election in 2016 to become the first U.S. Senator of Jamaican or Indian ancestry and California’s third female Senator.
On January 21, 2019, Harris officially announced she would be running for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race.
