Where were Vice President Kamala Harris’ parents born? Family history of the presidential candidate
Donald Trump made false claims about the Vice President’s identity in a recent public appearance, drawing criticism from many commentators.
Last month former president Donald Trump made controversial comments about the identity of his presidential election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Speaking at an annual gathering of Black journalists, Trump falsely claimed that Harris had changed the way that she identified herself.
The former president told reporters at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention: “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
Trump’s comments were widely criticised and the subject of fact-checking. Contrary to Trump’s claims, Harris’ official White House biography describes her as “the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American” to serve as Vice President.
Where were Kamala Harris’ parents born?
In the aftermath of Trump’s comments, Harris issued a withering response. She said: “It was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth.”
The vice president’s father, Donald Harris, was born in Jamaica. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in southern India.
Both moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where they met and VP Harris was born in Oakland, California. Donald Harris, 85, is an economist, while Gopalan was a breast cancer researcher. Kamala’s mother died of cancer at age 70 in 2009.
In addition to their studies, the Gopalan-Harris couple fought for civil rights and social justice. In her memoir, the vice president reveals that her parents often pushed her in a stroller to civil rights marches.
Harris’ parents married in 1963 and had two daughters: Kamala, born in 1964, and Maya, born in 1967. However they separated when the now-VP was 5 years old and divorced a few years later.