The definitional power of parenthood has been an unofficial theme of the Democratic convention this week. And Shyamala Gopalan Harris, the vice president’s mother, is a main character.
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Kamala Harris with her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, center, her sister Maya, bottom left, and her maternal grandparents, P.V. and Rajam Gopalan, in an undated family photo.
In 1958, a young graduate student moved to the United States from her native India because she wanted to find a cure for breast cancer. She fell in love, got married and had two daughters. She named her eldest Kamala, a Sanskrit name meaning lotus flower.
Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who died of colon cancer in 2009, never got to see that daughter, Kamala Harris, win a close election to become attorney general of California, and go on to become a senator. She did not watch as Ms. Harris was chosen to run with Joseph R. Biden Jr., eventually becoming the vice president of the United States. But at the 2024 Democratic convention, Ms. Harris will credit the woman who raised her as her life’s animating force.
Ms. Harris’s headlining speech on Thursday evening is expected to focus in part on how her mother shaped her values and informed her approach to politics, according to a person who is helping with the speech who was not authorized to speak about the appearance. In her address, Ms. Harris has to outline her biography and introduce herself to the largest audience she has had yet as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Throughout the week, family members and friends have appeared to tell the convention crowd more about Ms. Harris. Shyamala Gopalan Harris has been at the fore of many of those speeches, as Tony West, who is married to Ms. Harris’s younger sister, Maya, said on Wednesday evening.
“Kamala and I each pursued different legal careers, but we were motivated by the same values: a belief in equal opportunity, a yearning for fairness, a passion for justice,” he said, “values ‘Mother Harris’ taught those two little girls, values that powered Kamala’s public service from the very beginning.”
Other political allies, including Hillary Clinton, have woven Ms. Harris’s mother into their convention speeches, putting the vice president at the front of a long line of American women who had fought for civil rights, worked to earn public office and campaigned to win the presidency.
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Source: nytimes.com
