Grateful To My Mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris For My Presence Here Today: Kamala Harris

Picture courtesy: AP

New Delhi: Kamala Harris scripted history by becoming the first woman, the first person of colour and the first Indian-American to become Vice-President of the US. She paid rich tribute to her Indian mother on her first address.

“I’m grateful to the woman most responsible for my presence here today, my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in America where moment like this is possible,” Harris said in her first address to the nation as VP-Elect.

“I am thinking about her and generations of women, black women, Asian, White, Latina, Native American women who throughout our nation’s history have paved the way for this moment tonight,” the 57-year-old said.

Daughter of an Indian immigrant and a Jamaican-born father, Harris is a Christian but have visited several Hindu temples with her mother.

The first woman VP-Elect of the US also talked about her childhood trips to Tamil Nadu and about the support she received from her “chittis (aunts)”.