By: Mariana Navarrete, Contributing Writer
As a child of immigrants from Jamaica and India, Vice President Kamala Harris “knows personally how immigrant families enrich our country,” President Joe Biden said in his first presidential campaign in Delaware, adding that “her story is America’s story.”
Harris was born in Oakland, California, to two immigrants – an economics professor from Jamaica and a breast-cancer researcher from India. Harris is the first Black woman and first Asian American to be chosen as a vice presidential running mate on a major-party ticket.
Harris earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University and her law degree from the University of California, Hastings. Harris began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in Oakland.
Harris specialized in sex crimes and child exploitation litigations as a young prosecutor fresh out of law school. She later endorsed her own record on child sexual abuse cases, prosecuting pedophiles in television advertisements as she campaigned for public office.
In 2003, Harris became the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. After completing two terms, she was elected as California’s Attorney General, the first African American and first woman to serve in that position.
As Attorney General, Harris declined to support two ballot measures to end the death penalty, disapproved of the notion of drug possession as a misdemeanor, and co-founded the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids.
Harris also formalized a court for young adults charged with felonies in which convictions were reduced and the young adults got second chances.
One of her most significant accomplishments as Attorney General was the creation of Open Justice, an online platform to make criminal justice data available to the public. The database helps improve police accountability by collecting information on the number of deaths and injuries of those in police custody.
While in office, clergy sex abuse victims complained about Harris’ silence on the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal. Joey Piscitelli, a spokesperson for the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), recounts that Harris ignored multiple messages urging her to release records of abused clergy to help alleged victims in court.
In 2017, Kamala Harris was sworn in as a United States Senator for California. She was the second African American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history.
In 2019, U.S. Sen. Harris announced a bill she co-sponsored to decriminalize the possession of marijuana on a federal level. “Times have changed — marijuana should not be a crime,” said Harris.
Since then, Vice President Harris has co-sponsored bills for several causes, including the expansion of gun control measures, “Medicare for All,” increased wages for working people, reform of the criminal justice system, substance abuse, support of veterans and military families, and more access to childcare for working parents.
President Joe Biden chose Harris as vice president because of her experience in public office. President Biden believes that her mixed-race heritage allows her to connect across identities and reach multiple audiences and voting blocs.
President Biden said, “Little Black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities, but today, just maybe they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way.”
