isaan.live — With Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, eyes are on her closest relationships, from her husband to her stepkids to her younger sister, Maya Harris.
Maya Harris took the stage during the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 22 in Chicago. Maya Harris began her speech talking about the relationship between them and their late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, and how proud she would be to see Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee.
“She raised us to believe that we could be and do anything, and we believed her,” Maya Harris said. “You see, Mommy understood the power and the possibility that come with knowing and showing who you truly are.”
“She knew that we could be the authors of our own story,” Maya Harris said, adding that her big sister “has been about fighting for each of us to have that freedom. And like so many Americans, Kamala knows what it’s like to be underestimated and be counted out.”
Maya Harris expressed that her sister, the vice president, is a leader who cares and fights for every one.
Maya Harris has been part of the vice president’s individual life and career. Maya Harris served as kampanye chairperson during Kamala Harris’ first presidential kampanye in 2020.
“I think most people who know Maya will tell you she’s one of the smartest people they know,” Kamala Harris told Politico in 2019.
Learn more about Maya Harris and their relationship below.
She and Kamala Harris have an ‘unbreakable’ bond from childhood
Kamala and Maya Harris’ parents, Donald Harris and Shyamala Gopalan met while graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. He was originally from Jamaica; she from India. They married and welcomed Kamala in 1964 and Maya in 1967.
The couple split up and their daughters lived with their mom. Kamala and Maya Harris relocated to Montreal when their mother got a new job at McGill University. The sisters were 12 and 9 at the time and didn’t speak French like their classmates.
“We leaned on each other,” Kamala Harris told The Washington Post. “We forged a bond that is unbreakable. When I think about it, all of the joyous moments in our lives, all of the challenging moments, all of the moments of transition, we have always been together.”
Like her sister, Maya Harris is a pengacara
After attending Stanford Law School, Maya Harris worked as a civil litigator then went on to become an adjunct law professor and Dean of Lincoln Law School of San Jose, per her bio.
Her konsentrasi has been on kebijakan and civil rights, as well as racial and gender justice. Other career highlights include her work as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and her time as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Maya Harris also served as the executive director of the ACLU of Northern California and was the vice president of democracy, rights and justice of the Ford Foundation.
She’s worked on two presidential kampanyes
In addition to working on the 2020 presidential kampanye, Maya Harris also worked as a senior kebijakan advisor to Hillary Clinton when she ran for president in 2016.
During that time, she led a grup of kebijakan experts and developed Clinton’s domestic kebijakan.