A mixed heritage
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” said former president Trump when asked a question about Kamala Harris’ ethnic identity at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference in Chicago on July 31.
In a contentious interaction that began with Rachel Scott of ABC accusing Trump of referring to Black journalists as “losers,” “stupid,” and “racist,” he responded to her query about whether he believed that Vice President Kamala Harris was only on the ticket because she is a Black woman, by saying, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know. Is she Indian, or is she Black?”
“Somebody should look into that too,” he added.
In the 35-minute conversation at the NABJ summit, Trump attacked Harris’ competence and identity even though the other journalists on stage (Kadia Goba of Semafor and Harris Faulkner of Fox News) disagreed with his claim that Harris had always been Indian.
“She has always identified as Black,” Scott said.
“I respect either one. But she obviously doesn’t,” Trump responded.
A question of identity
Ever since she assumed office, Vice President Kamala Harris has had to combat the identities that others have thrust on her. So where does she stand when it comes to her own identity?
In her book ‘The Truths We Hold’ Harris explains that her name is pronounced “comma-la,” and means “lotus flower” – a “symbol of significance in Indian culture.” Harris was born to a Jamaican father Donald Harris, a professor at Stanford University, and Shyamala Gopalan, her Indian mother who came from Chennai in Tamilnadu to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology.
Harris writes of Gopalan, “From almost the moment she arrived from India, she chose and was welcome to and enveloped in the Black community. It was the foundation of her new life.”
Growing up bi-racial
She credits Gopalan’s sensitivity with raising her bi-racial daughters. “My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters,” Harris wrote. “She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”
That upbringing took Harris to Howard University, a historically black college and university (HBCU), where she became a member of a national Black sorority.
Harris stated regarding her time at Howard, “There were hundreds of people, and everyone looked like me. Every signal told students that we could be anything — that we were young, gifted, and Black.”
Notably, after that first chapter, Harris refrains from using the word “Indian” again in her book until she discusses her marriage, which blended Hindu and Jewish customs through the exchange of garlands with her husband Doug Emhof. Later, she writes about cooking “Indian biryani.”
But Harris also acknowledges that her mother “instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots. Our classical Indian names harked back to our heritage, and were raised with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture.”
Identity Politics
When Harris entered politics, according to a February 2019 article in The Washington Post, she was completely at ease with her dual identity. Kamala Harris, daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, defines herself simply as ‘American’ the article writes, quoting Harris, “‘I am who I am.”
From the start of her political career, Harris’s multiracial identity was obvious. In 2003, AsianWeek featured Harris as a candidate for district attorney of San Francisco, who was open about her multi-ethnic background.
“I grew up with a strong Indian culture, and I was raised in a Black community. All my friends were Black, and we got together and cooked Indian food and painted henna on our hands, and I never felt uncomfortable with my cultural background,” Harris said in the interview.
Harris’ campaign headquarters notably avoided discussing her ethnicity. In a statement posted on X about Donald Trump’s remarks, the campaign HQ said “The hostility Donald Trump showed on stage today is the same hostility he has shown throughout his life. Trump lobbed personal attacks and insults at Black journalists the same way he did throughout his presidency.”
Roots of prejudice
Trump’s preoccupation with Harris’s identity has its roots in the political rhetoric that began before his presidential campaigns. During the Obama presidency, he added fuel to the birther movement, which said that Obama and Nikki Haley couldn’t be president because they weren’t born in the United States. In 2012, Trump tweeted that his office had been informed by a “very credible source” that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a fraud.
In 2016 his campaign messaging claimed “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best—they’re rapists,” When he became president in 2016 he used the term “shithole countries” to describe African nations.
This time around his core messaging focuses on restoring America’s former splendor and limiting illegal immigration.
America is multi-racial
The reality today in America is that it’s multiracial. From 2.9% in the 2010 Census to 10.2% in 2020, the percentage of people who were classified as multiracial rose significantly.
Since Biden dropped out of the race, Harris has been making steady gains in national polls against Trump. She is a presidential candidate whose victory would break three glass ceilings—being the first female president, the first Black woman, and the first president from an Asian or Indian background.
Today the American demographic represents a cultural variety and integration that truly makes the country a melting pot.
“One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, ‘Don’t let anybody tell you who you are. You tell them who you are,’”
Harris wrote, “And so I did.”