Kamala Harris carries many first flags as she enters the White House vice-president office — first American woman, white or Black; first Asian; first person of Indian origin. She comes from a Black and Brahmin background, another rare and unusual combination.
The transformation of an Indian Brahmin to Blackhood in a country known for racial discrimination is a rarest of the rare occurrence. Indian Brahmin men, let alone women, for a long time in history, refused to travel across the seas because it was considered ritual pollution.
Shyamala Gopalan, Kamala Harris’ mother, went there for higher studies in science in 1958 and got married to a Black economics teacher, Donald Jasper Harris at Stanford, who had migrated to the US from Jamaica. Generally, Tamil Brahmins are conservative Vaishnavites with a ‘pure’ vegetarian food culture. For Shyamala, overcoming that background and marrying a Black man whose cultural heritage was totally different was a revolutionary step.
Although the marriage did not last long, Shyamala Gopalan with her two girls — Kamala and Maya — continued her life as a Black civil rights activist, carrying on her husband’s legacy. This is another rarest of rare feat that could be expected of an Indian, that too a Tamil Brahmin. In the 1960s, the civil rights movement was at its peak with Martin Luther King leading the agitation across the US. Shyamala became an activist for it.
Shyamala Gopalan became a protestant Christian, which was her husband’s religion, but occasionally used to visit Hindu temples. Young Kamala became a good choir singer and it was this Protestant Christian background that later helped her in her fight for the attorney, Senate and vice-presidential elections. Joe Biden is a Catholic Christian. He must have picked Kamala because of her Indian-Black-protestant background to win the election.
https://archive.is/wip/Uif0c