At an event named ”South Asians for Biden”, Kamala Harris wished Indians on Independence Day and said Indian and US communities are bound together by so much more than their shared history and culture.
Taking a trip down memory lane, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Saturday recalled her mother’s attempts to “instill a love of good idli” in her and sister Maya and “long walks” with her grandfather in Chennai.
At an event named ”South Asians for Biden”, Kamala Harris wished Indians on the Independence Day and said Indian and US communities are bound together by so much more than their shared history and culture.
“When my mother Shyamala [Gopalan] stepped off a plane in California as a 19-year-old, she didn’t have much in way of belongings but she carried with her lessons from home, including ones she’d learned from her parents,” Harris said.
The former California district attorney said that her mother, a Tamil Indian-American who became a leading cancer researcher and activist, would take her and sister Maya to India because she wanted her daughters to understand where she had come from.
She remembered how she and her grandfather would go on long walks in what was then called Madras, where her grandfather would tell her about “heroes” who were involved in the freedom struggle in India. Harris said that lessons from her grandfather PV Gopalan, a career civil servant, are a big reason “why I am where I am today”.
“Growing up, my mother would take my sister Maya and me back to what was then called Madras because she wanted us to understand where she had come from and where we had ancestry. And, of course, she always wanted to instil in us, a love of good idli,” she said.
“In Madras, I would go on long walks with my grandfather, who at that point was retired, and we take morning walks where I pulled his hand and he would tell me about the heroes who are responsible for the birth of the world’s biggest democracy, and he would explain that ‘tt’s on us to pick up where they left off”. Those lessons are a big reason why I am where I am today,” Harris added.
Kamala Harris, the senator from California, was picked by the democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as his running mate.
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