Glenn Tucker | Kamala Harris’ J’can roots

“…Thus, the cycle continues. The cycle of history repeats itself in remarkable ways, small and large, across the generations of us Jamaicans, though we may be scattered around the diaspora and far away from home where it all started. It is up to each generation to play its part, using well the legacy it inherits from the previous generation, so as to leave behind something of value for those to follow” – Donald J. Harris, Brown’s Town boy. Father of Kamala. Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

I will confess – with mild embarrassment – that Kamala Harris first caught my attention because I found her very attractive. I first started to take her seriously when I watched her cross-examine Trump appointees for the Supreme Court and the Justice Department.

When I heard that her roots were from my neck of the woods, I checked and immediately discovered that her uncle and I were in the same class at York Castle High School and that her grand uncles – Newton and Reggie – were my father’s close friends. Her father Donald spent his early life at Orange Hill – which is about 300 yards from my home, but the same district as the Hemmings clan, Olympian Deon’s relatives, and within spitting distance from tech giant, Douglas Halsall. Were he alive, Doug’s dad, Harry, would have been an excellent source of information.

In his ‘Reflections of a Jamaican Father’, Donald confesses that two of the most influential persons in his life were women. The first was his paternal grandmother, Christiana Brown. ‘Miss Chrishy’, as she was known in Brown’s Town and surrounding districts, was “reserved and stern in look, firm with the ‘strap’ but capable of the most endearing and genuine acts of love, and care”. She is a descendant of Hamilton Brown, on record as a plantation owner and founder of Brown’s Town.

The Harris name came about when she married James Alexander Harris, who owned a lot of land and used to export pimento. His tombstone can still be found in the Anglican churchyard across from ‘top’ Charley’s store (there was a ‘bottom’ Charley’s). Oh, Hamilton Brown also built that historic church. Kamala’s father attended that church, “learned the catechism, was baptised, confirmed and served as an acolyte there”.

‘Elders’ in Brown’s Town – like the Julian sisters – should remember Kamala’s grandparents – ‘Miss Beryl’ and ‘Maas Oscar’. But – during the summers – when her dad came home from Titchfield School, where he went after leaving Park School, he frequently journeyed to Aenon Town and Inverness to his maternal grandmother – Miss Iris – whose maiden name was Finegan, who along with her husband, ‘Mr Christie’, owned a sugar plantation at Thatch Walk, near Aenon Town. Donald remembers her as ‘a tough farming woman’. Older folk in Inverness describe her as a “strong preacher, especially during the (WWII) war”.

TASTE FOR POLITICS

The taste for politics could be said to have come from both sides of Kamala’s family. Her great-grandmother, who had a ‘dry goods’ store just below ‘top’ Charley’s, was a staunch, proud admirer of Bustamante. She frequently admitted that she was a “labourite” and could be heard to say “labour is at the heart of everything in life”.

Her maternal grandfather was an Indian diplomat and his wife was a women’s rights activist. Kamala’s parents – Shayamala and Donald – met when they attended UC, Berkeley, both pursuing doctorate degrees. After they married and started a family, they would attend civil rights marches, sometimes taking Kamala in a stroller. They often recall a young Kamala shouting “FEE-DOM!!”

Of her mother, Kamala writes, “My mother was very intentional about raising my sister, Maya, and me as strong black women … She coupled her teachings of civic duty and fearlessness with actions, which included taking us on Thursday nights to Rainbow Sign, a black cultural centre near our home. There we were always greeted with warm hugs and exposed to extraordinary people like Shirley Chisholm, Nina Simone and Maya Angelou, who helped show us what we could become.”

Kamala’s mother became a pioneering breast cancer researcher. Her work took her to many top research institutions, including the universities of Illinois and Wisconsin, McGill in Montreal and the Lawrence Berkley National Library. She made substantial contributions to the field of hormones and breast cancer, publishing her research in countless journals and receiving numerous honours. Shyamala, her mom, put it this way, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, “Kamala comes from a long line of kick ass women”.

One of my many ‘god’ sons (note, ‘god’, not ‘step’) asked me, during recent riots, why I do not hate white people who dislike us because they say we are inferior. The only explanation I could find was, when you have a good, clear knowledge of the impressive history and accomplishments of the black race, and an understanding of how civilisations rise and fall, racial hatred has its genesis in ignorance. And ignorance should not inspire hate, but sympathy.

Immigrants like Kamala’s parents and their extended families could never be described as entering the US because they were ‘sufferers’. Their background is far more impressive than the overwhelming majority of white Americans. Yes, there are potential refugees and immigrants that President Trump is using cruel, inhumane methods of keeping out of America’s southern border. Yes, they are poor and hungry. But these are innocent victims who, through corruption and crime, have had their country’s natural resources stolen from them and are, unwittingly, following the trail of this theft to where it now resides.

IMMIGRANTS MADE AMERICA

And why should I allow a racist – who paid people to take his exams, and can’t pronounce ‘Yosemite’ or ‘Thailand’ – to make me feel bad about myself?

It cannot be disputed that immigrants have made America what it is. The New American Economy Research Fund found that immigrants and the children of immigrants founded 45 per cent of the US Fortune 500 companies. This is not really news, but it is the most recent piece of research that ties a significant portion of US economic growth to migrant families.

The fund claims that of the Fortune 500 companies, 101 – like Apple, Amazon, Office Depot and Merck – were founded directly by foreign-born individuals and 122 by the children of immigrants. These companies employ 13.5 million workers and, on average, employ 11 per cent more people than the median Fortune 500 corporations founded by non-immigrants.

More than 50 per cent of the revenue pulled in by Fortune 500 companies in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Washington and New York originated from companies founded by immigrant companies and their children. In Illinois alone, revenue brought in by immigrant-led Fortune 500 companies equalled 70 per cent of the state’s overall GDP in 2018. A Citi Group/Oxford University study claimed that immigrants were more than twice as likely to produce a patented invention or become the winner of an Academy Award or a Nobel Prize.

So if I ever develop the capacity to hate, it would be reserved for those who allow others to define them and determine their course in life.

Suffrage activists in the US fought for over 70 years to secure women the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton ran for president in 1866 – more than 50 years before US women could legally vote.

August will be a memorable month for Kamala Harris. August 18 – Jamaica’s Nomination Day – will mark the 100th anniversary of the constitutional amendment that extended voting rights to women in the United States.

The star of 55-year-old Kamala Devi Harris is still in its ascendancy.

- Glenn Tucker, MBA, is an educator and a sociologist. Email feedback to glenntucker2011@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com