Useful Notes / Kamala Harris

"I say to you my friends, these are not ordinary times. […] But this is our America."

Kamala Devi Harris (born October 20, 1964)^note She was registered at birth as "Kamala Iyer Harris", but it was corrected two weeks later. is an American politician and attorney who is the current Vice President of the United States. Harris is the first female U.S. vice president and the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history, and being of both Afro-Jamaican and Indian ancestry, the first African American and the first Asian American to hold the post.^note Some media reports went as far as call her the first biracial and/or person of color to be elected vice president, but that title actually goes to Charles Curtis, vice president from 1929 to 1933, who was not quite half Native American and identified heavily with his Native ancestry; he was an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation and grew up on a reservation in Kansas. He is little remembered, in part because he had the dubious honor of being veep to Herbert Hoover and in part because his assimilationist vision for the future of Native people was thoroughly rejected by later generations. She is married to Doug Emhoff, making him the nation's first second gentleman, and has two step-children.

Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. A member of the Democratic Party, Harris began her political career in 2003 when she was elected district attorney of San Francisco, then was elected attorney general of California in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.

Harris won the 2016 U.S. Senate election in California and became the second African American woman (after Carol Moseley Braun, D-IL) and the first South Asian American to serve in the United States Senate. As a senator, she gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings.

Harris ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but withdrew from the race prior to the primaries. However, eventual Democratic nominee Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate in August 2020, and their ticket went on to win the general election in November, defeating the incumbent president, Donald Trump, and vice president Mike Pence. Harris took office as vice president in 2021 alongside President Biden.

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Books she has written

• Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer (2009)
• Superheroes Are Everywhere (2019)
• The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019)

Media

Live-Action Television

• Saturday Night Live: She has been portrayed by Maya Rudolph, beginning with the 2020 Democratic primaries. Harris approved.
• In Yellowjackets, Taissa, who is running for state senator and whose actress does share a passing resemblance to Harris, is called the "queer Kamala" (she is gay) by a photographer.

Theatre

• The 47th is a Speculative Fiction play by Mike Bartlett that imagines a future political showdown between Harris and Donald Trump. In the London premiere of the play, Harris was played by Tamara Tunie.

Western Animation

• Duncanville: Mr. Mitch calls her in 'Das Banana Boot'.

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