The ‘blended’ family behind Kamala Harris Leave a comment

Vice-President Kamala Harris has had to quickly re-introduce herself to US voters, who are now having to size her up as a potential commander-in-chief, instead of Joe Biden’s deputy.

And during the biggest moment of Ms Harris’s career so far – the Democratic convention in Chicago – they have gotten to know her family as well.

Here are the members of the big and blended family who have helped her get here.

Ms Harris met her now-husband, Los Angeles entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff in 2013, while she was serving as California’s attorney general. They were married the following year. Since then Mr Emhoff, 59, has stuck close to his wife’s side as she has risen in the ranks of US politics.

In 2020, when Ms Harris made history as the first black and South Asian woman to become vice-president, Mr Emhoff made history too as the first husband of an American president or vice-president, as well as the first Jewish spouse of a vice-president.

He left his law firm that year to focus full-time on his role as “second gentleman”, a position that has pulled him out of relative obscurity. He is now known as an enthusiastic champion for Democratic party causes and Ms Harris’s most loyal surrogate on the campaign trail.

And in a prime-time slot on the second night of the convention, a beaming Mr Emhoff one again was his wife’s biggest booster.

“She’s always been there for our children,” Mr Emhoff said. “and I know she’ll always be there for yours too.”

The vice-president’s marriage made her a step-mother to Cole and Ella, the two children Mr Emhoff shares with his first wife, Kerstin Emhoff.

Ms Harris has said often that of all her many titles, being “Momala” – the term coined by Cole and Ella – is the most important. That affection seems to go both ways – Cole and Ella, now 30 and 25, respectively, have been vocal supporters of Ms Harris.

“The world’s greatest step-mother”, was Ella’s introduction during the 2020 Democratic convention. “You’re a rock, not just for our dad, but for three generations of our big, blended family.”

Cole, who graduated from Colorado College in 2017, has followed his father into the entertainment industry, with jobs at talent agency WME and, later, Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B.

Ella, who graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City, signed with IMG Models in 2021 and walked in shows for high-fashion brands like Balenciaga and Proenza Schouler. She’s also an artist and a prolific knitter, who launched the knitwear brand and club Soft Hands in 2021.

Each night of the DNC Cole and Ella have been been staples in the Harris-Walz family box, cheering on their family and proudly donning campaign merchandise.

Cole and Ella’s mom, Kerstin, has – perhaps unexpectedly – gone out of her way to speak warmly and positively of Ms Harris. Recently, Kerstin came to Ms Harris’s defence when JD Vance’s “childless cat lady” comments resurfaced.

“For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” Kerstin said in a statement to CNN. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

• The many identities of the first woman vice-president
• Doug Emhoff: The first ‘second dude’ in the White House

Kerstin, the founder and CEO of production company Prettybird, even provided her creative expertise and connections to the 2020 campaign.

“They were like, ‘The ex-wife wants to do what?'” Kerstin said to Marie Claire in 2020.

Kamala Harris is known to be very close to her only sibling and younger sister, Maya Harris. After their parents’ divorce, the two girls were primarily raised by their mother, Shyamala Gopalan, in Berkeley, California.

Like her older sister, Maya pursued a career in law, graduating from Stanford University law school in 1992. She worked as a litigator and taught law classes before joining the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, where she became executive director in 2006.

Maya, 57, eventually shifted to politics, serving as a senior policy advisor to Hillary Clinton on her 2016 presidential campaign. She then served as campaign chair to her sister’s failed 2020 bid for Democratic nominee, before becoming a surrogate for the Biden-Harris ticket.Maya Harris was campaign chair of Ms Harris’s 2020 presidential attempt

Maya’s only child, Meena, followed the Harris family tradition by graduating from law school. Meena advised her “Aunty” Kamala through the early stages of her political career, as she moved through positions at elite Silicon Valley companies like Uber, Facebook and Slack.

Beginning in 2017, the mother of two launched Phenomenal, a media and merchandising company that focuses on projects led by women and other underrepresented groups.

But Meena’s career is still linked in some ways to her aunt’s.

In June 2020, she published a children’s book about her aunt and mother called “Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea”. And after Mr Biden selected Ms Harris as his running mate, Phenomenal began selling “Vice President Aunty” sweatshirts.Meena Harris has written childrens books featuring her Aunty Kamala

Husband to Maya, step-father to Meena, Tony West is another accomplished member of the Harris clan, and another lawyer.

A graduate of Stanford law (where he met Maya and her then-toddler daughter), Mr West has worked at high levels of the private and public sector. He was associate attorney general under President Barack Obama and worked as general counsel of PepsiCo.

Mr West is now the chief legal officer of Uber, but he’s also emerged as a key adviser to his sister-in-law’s campaign.

Uber said this month he would take a leave of absence to devote himself to Team Harris.

“I have always believed family comes first,” Mr West said in a statement. “So I’ve decided to dedicate myself full-time to supporting my family and my sister-in-law on the campaign trail.”

Shyamala Gopalan, mother

Although Dr Shyamala Gopalan died before she could see her daughter run for president, Kamala and Maya Harris say their scientist mother inspired both of their careers.

“My mother was the first person to tell me that my thoughts and experiences mattered,” Ms Harris wrote on Facebook in 2022. “My mother would often say to me: ‘Kamala, you may be the first to do many things. Make sure you are not the last.'”

Ms Gopalan, who died in 2009, moved to the US from India at age 19 to study science, going on to work as a breast cancer researcher.

Her activism in the civil rights movement led her to her future husband: economist and Jamaican immigrant Donald Harris. Ms Harris has credited her mother with raising both her and Maya and her current relationship with her father is unclear.Kamala Harris, Tony West, Maya Harris, Meena Harris and Tony West’s mother, Peggy Reddick, watch the polls come in during the 2010 California attorney general election.

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Source ( BBC News )