Our country’s first Black, South Asian woman Vice President is a Bay Area native.
March is Women’s History Month, and we’d be remiss not to celebrate the women that are making history before our very eyes.
On January 20th, 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President of the United States, immediately becoming an icon for young women everywhere. She had a profound impact on the community of San Francisco and beyond before starting her tenure as Madame VP.
Big challenges demand big solutions. The work continues. pic.twitter.com/gj9qIPwvNm
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) February 17, 2021
Harris spent her developmental years in Oakland and Berkeley. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a biomedical scientist from Tamil Nadu in South India. Her father, Donald J. Harris, is an economist and Stanford professor emeritus from St. Ann Parish in Jamaica.
She attended Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C. She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and graduated in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics. Afterwards, she returned to the Bay Area for law school at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, graduating in 1989.
[Image: Shutterstock]
Harris served as District Attorney of San Francisco from 2004-2011, Attorney General of California from 2011-2017, and California U.S. Senator from 2017-2021. Over the years, Harris has called for immigration, criminal justice, and healthcare reforms, federal de-scheduling of cannabis, minimum wage increases, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the DREAM Act, bans on assault weapons, protection of women’s reproductive rights, and much more. During her tenure in the Senate, she was recognized in her questioning of Trump administration officials including Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
On January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States of America. As of then, Harris is officially the first woman and the first Black and South Asian Vice President in our country’s history.
[Featured Image: Shutterstock]