Kamala Harris The People's Vice President

Kamala Harris was raised to believe in a just and equal world, even if she couldn’t see it. Juliet Rieden discovers how America’s new beacon of hope rose from segregation to the second-highest office in the land.

- Juliet Rieden

She’s been dubbed “the female Obama” and not just because of her skin colour. There’s a purity and energy about Kamala Harris’ courage and resolve that is rare in a political landscape increasingly fuelled by divisiveness. Like Barack Obama she trained as a lawyer, and also like America’s first black President, her passion is to use the law to fight injustice wherever she finds it.

It’s a simple but powerful credo, which is why Kamala Harris is such a relatable figure. “Lawyers have a profound ability and responsibility to be a voice for the vulnerable and the voiceless,” she told her law school’s newspaper, and already this dynamic new Vice President is doing just that.

Kamala’s ethnic background may be unique in her new job, but as the daughter of immigrants she represents a great number of Americans. Add to this her gender – again unique for a VP, but reflecting more than half of the US population – and without even opening her mouth, the 56-year-old Californian is fulfilling her ideal. But while she appreciates the symbolic importance of her migrant parentage, Kamala describes herself as simply “an American” and has spoken about the frustration of politicians having to fit into gender and ethnicity boxes. “I am who I am,” she told a Washington Post reporter in 2019. “I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it.”

As a little girl Kamala was one of thousands of black children who were part of a national desegregation experiment, bussed from their hometowns to achieve an integrated and better education away from segregated schooling. She knew she had to fight to be seen and heard, and you don’t have to look far to see where Kamala learned that steely determination.