Kamala Harris: Who Is She and What She Stands For

During January 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female vice president of the United States. Upon swearing in, she also became the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to hold that office.

Fast forward to now, when President Joe Biden decided not to accept the presidential nomination for a second term and threw his support behind Harris, she’s in a position to make history again as the first woman president.

As Vice President, Harris has worked to bring people together to advance opportunity, deliver for families, and protect fundamental freedoms across the country. She has led the fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, the freedom to live safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote, and the freedom to drink clean water and breathe clean air.

But as she is thrown into an even bigger spotlight to become Madam President, many are asking, who is she or what has she done? We aim to answer those questions here:

How Kamala Grew Up as a Daughter of Immigrants

Kamala Devi Harris was born in Oakland, California, on October 20, 1964.

In the introduction to her 2019 memoir, “The Truths We Hold,” Harris noted that her name is pronounced “‘comma-la,’ like the punctuation mark” and that it means “lotus flower,” in homage to an important symbol in Indian culture.

Harris’ father, Donald, immigrated to the United States from Jamaica to study economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is now a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford.

Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, immigrated to the US from southern India in the late 1950s. She earned her doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology at Berkley and became an acclaimed breast cancer researcher before she passed away in 2009.

Harris writes that her parents “met and fell in love at Berkeley while participating in the civil rights movement,” but the couple later divorced when Harris and her sister, Maya, were young.

Harris credits her mother for “shaping us into the women we would become” and for teaching her daughters to be proud of both their Indian and Black heritage.

“Our classical Indian names harked back to our heritage, and we were raised with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture,” Harris wrote in her memoir.

“My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”

What Did She Do at Howard University?

Harris is a proud HBCU alum of The Howard University. She always has held fond memories of her alma mater and had this to say: “The thing that Howard taught me is that you can do any collection of things, and not one thing to the exclusion of the other. You could be homecoming queen and valedictorian. There are no false choices at Howard.”

According to HU, she refers to her time at Howard as her “formative years” where she first was introduced to her love of politics.

People looking back at college-aged Harris would see the beginnings of the vice president in the making. Some of the lessons Harris learned while at Howard have been instrumental to her success; for example, her deft skill and confidence when debating – immortalized in her famous line in the vice-presidential debate, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking” – were honed at Howard when she joined the debate team. As a political science and economics major, she also chaired the economics society and pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Alpha Chapter, during her time at Howard.

In her sophomore year, she interned with Senator Alan Cranston of California, the same seat she would win more than 30 years later.

Once, while working as a tour guide at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Harris ran into Howard alumnus and actor Ossie Davis and his wife Ruby Dee. “I’ve never forgotten how it made me feel as a young person to have these two icons, both larger than life, take the time to show an interest in me,” she recalls in her memoir.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings, she began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. In 2003, Sen. Harris became the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. Having completed two terms as the District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala was elected as the first African-American and first woman to serve as California’s Attorney General. In this role, she worked tirelessly to hold corporations accountable and protect the state’s most vulnerable people. In 2017, Harris was sworn in as a United States Senator for California, the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history. Harris serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on the Budget.

What Has She Done in Healthcare So Far?

As the attorney general of California, Harris focused on healthcare consolidation and clashed with major insurers, hospitals, and drug companies. Her record indicates she isn’t afraid to aggressively use antitrust laws to keep companies from raising costs due to anti-competitive behavior.

Under Harris’ leadership, California joined the U.S. Department of Justice in filing a civil antitrust lawsuit to block the proposed $54 billion merger of insurers Anthem and Cigna to create the nation’s largest health insurance company.

She also won multimillion-dollar settlements from major health care corporations like Quest Diagnostics and McKesson, which were the subjects of whistle-blower lawsuits accusing them of Medicaid fraud.

As vice president, Harris has taken the lead on the administration’s medical debt initiatives. Earlier this year, she announced a new set of rules that bans medical debt from credit reports.

“No one should be denied access to economic opportunity simply because they experienced a medical emergency,” Harris said at the time.

Where Does She Stand on ‘Healthcare for All?’

Harris has previously expressed support for a single-payer health care system, sometimes referred to as “Medicare for All.”

Although she initially indicated during a 2019 presidential campaign debate that she would support eliminating private health insurance, Harris walked back her support and instead unveiled her own health care plan. It called for expanding Medicare access to all Americans and setting up a 10-year transition period that would automatically enroll newborns and the uninsured, allowing doctors time to enter the system and help employers choose from federally designated programs.

The plan also preserves a role for private insurance companies, allowing Americans the option to obtain health insurance through the public Medicare plan or through a Medicare plan offered by a private insurer.

Endorsements for Harris Are Coming In Now

Besides many key governors and other politicians endorsing Harris, the queen of the Beyhive herself, Beyoncé has reportedly given permission to the vice-president turned presumptive presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, to use her song Freedom throughout her campaign.

According to CNN, Harris’s team got last-minute approval from the singer just hours before she walked out to the song at her campaign headquarters on Monday.

The superstar’s team has apparently now given her permission to use the song throughout the campaign.

While Beyoncé has not made any official endorsement since Joe Biden stepped down at the weekend, she endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020.