‘My father taught me to be fearless’
US presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks on the values she learnt from her parents
Published:Saturday | August 24, 2024 | 2:47 AMLester Hinds/Gleaner Writer
In paying tribute to her parents, United States Vice President and Democratic Party nominee for president, Kamala Harris, said among the lessons her Jamaican father Donald J. Harris taught her was to be fearless.
“When my sister and I accompanied our parents to the park, my mother wanted us to stay close to her but my father would tell me ‘run Kamala, run’,” she told a jam-packed audience at the Democratic Party’s National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Thursday.
“My father taught me how to be fearless,” she said.
Recounting her upbringing, Vice President Harris said that her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who hailed from India, came to the United States to pursue her education.
“She was supposed to return to India after graduating, where she was to be married in an arranged marriage, but she met my father, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and got married,” Harris shared.
She said that her parents took herself and her sister to civil rights meetings, which shaped her sense of purpose.
The US vice president also said that her parents instilled in her the value of not allowing anyone to “define you but rather to show them who you are instead”.
Harris told the crowd that she has lived in several states across the United States, as her parents moved around because of their jobs. Sadly, she said, their marriage did not last.
Her mother died of colon cancer in 2009.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
As she spoke about her childhood, background, and what motivated her to become a prosecutor during her 40-minute address, Harris also laid out her vision for the future of America.
Pointing out how her mother, then single, had to save for more than 10 years to be able to purchase a home, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee vowed to end housing shortage in the United States with the construction of some three million affordable houses.
She also proposed giving first-time home buyers US$25,000 towards the downpayment on a house.
VP Harris further vowed to sign legislation to provide and protect women’s reproductive rights, as well as a tough immigration bill that was agreed on by a bipartisan congressional group, but which former president and her opponent, Donald Trump, urged his supporters in Congress to kill.
Noting that America is a nation of immigrants, she said that securing the country’s borders was not mutually exclusive to providing undocumented immigrants with a pathway to citizenship.
“We can do both,” Harris declared.
The vice president also promised to fight inflation by stopping price gouging, which she said leads to a high cost of living for Americans.