Didn’t make it to White House as first woman President, but inspired hope: Kamala Harris

Washington: More than a decade ago, a journalist called Kamala Harris “female Obama”. However, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants failed to match the achievement of first African-American president Barack Obama.

The Democratic leader’s defeat to her Republican rival Donald Trump in a bitterly contested election shattered her dream to become the first woman President of the US. But her nomination enthused women that this door in public life is not closed to them.

Harris, 60, has known other firsts, though. She has been the district attorney for San Francisco -- the first woman, first African-American and first Indian-origin person to be elected to the position. As vice president, she is the first woman to hold the post. Also, she happens to be the first African-American or Indian-American person to make it there.

In an Op-ed published three days before the November 5 election, Harris recollected her frequent visit to India as a child and remembered her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist.

“Growing up, my mother raised my sister and me to appreciate and honour our heritage. Nearly every other year, we would go to India for Diwali. We would spend time with our grandparents, our uncles, and our ‘chitthis’ (aunts),” Harris said in the article for The Juggernaut, an online South Asian publication.

She said she believes Americans want a president who works for all American people. “And that has been the story of my entire career,” she said. Harris got her big chance when President Joe Biden abandoned his own bid for reelection in July following his poor performance in a nationally televised debate with Trump. Biden endorsed Harris as the party nominee in the election.

Her nomination fulfilled her presidential dreams, which she abandoned before the primaries in 2019 due to a lack of funds to continue her campaign.

Biden picked her as his running mate in 2016. She was just the third woman to be picked as the vice president nominee on a major party ticket.