Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday picked California Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate for the US Presidential Elections 2020. She is the first African American nominated for Vice President by a major party.
Taking to Twitter, Harris said that she was honoured to join Biden. She wrote, ".@JoeBiden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals." "I'm honoured to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief," she added.
Here are the 10 things to know about Kamala Harris:
1. Born on October 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, Harris is the daughter of immigrants. Her Jamaican father Donald Harris was a professor at Stanford University and her mother Shyamala Gopalan was a cancer researcher from Tamil Nadu, India.
2. She went to the black Baptist Church where she sang in the choir and also attended a Hindu temple with her mother. Occasionally, she also visited her mother's family in Chennai with her sisiter.
3. Harris' maternal grandfather P.V. Gopalan was one of the freedom fighters in India. Speaking about her mother's influence in terms of culture and heritage, Harris told CNN, "My mother was very proud of her Indian heritage and taught us, me and my sister Maya, to share in the pride about our culture. We used to go back to India every couple of years. One of the most influential people in my life, in addition to my mother, was my grandfather P.V. Gopalan."
4. Recalling the fond memories with her grandfather, Harris said, "Some of my fondest memories from childhood were walking along the beach with him after he retired and lived in Besant Nagar, in what was then called Madras.
5. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from the Howard University in Washington, D.C. She got her law degree from UC Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
6. Harris served as the San Francisco district attorney from 2004-2011 and California attorney general from 2011-2016. In 2017, she became the second African American woman and first South Asian-American senator in US history.
7. Harris and the Joe Biden's son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, were close friends and worked together on issues, particularly those related to the big banks following the financial crisis of 2008. Harris and Beau were state attorneys general in California and Delaware respectively.
8. Harris is married to attorney Douglas Emhoff. Reportedly, they met on a blind date and married at the Santa Barbara courthouse on August 22, 2014. She is the stepmother to Emhoff's two children from his previous marriage.
9. She ran for the Democratic nomination for President, briefly became a frontrunner. However, she ended her campaign on December 3, 2019, citing a lack of funds.
10. Harris has written three books: The Truths We Hold: An American Journey; Smart on Crime; and the children’s book Superheroes Are Everywhere.
