Who is Shyamala Gopalan? Kamala Harris invokes her Indian mother in DNC speech
When Kamala Harris talks about her South Asian identity, it’s usually in the context of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan. The same was true tonight during Harris' speech.
When Kamala Harris talks about her South Asian identity, it’s usually in the context of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan. The same was true Thursday night during Harris' speech on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention.
Gopalan, who died in 2009, left an indelible mark on the vice president, immersing her in Indian culture and social activism from an early age.
"My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with an unshakable dream," Harris said in her speech at the convention. "She taught us to never complain about injustice but to do something about it."
Gopalan was born and raised in the South Indian city of Chennai (then called Madras). A grandfather was a civil servant and a proponent of India’s freedom from the British. Gopalan had a similar activist bent. After she moved to the Bay Area at 19 years old and enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, she became involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
Gopalan earned her doctorate by age 25 and went on to become a prominent breast cancer researcher. At Berkeley, she met Harris’ father, Donald Harris, whom she married in 1963 and divorced in 1971.
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