Kamala Harris opens up on being raised by a strong, brown immigrant mother

[Editor’s note: Motherly is committed to covering all relevant presidential candidate plans as we approach the 2020 election. We are making efforts to get information from all candidates. Motherly does not endorse any political party or candidate. We stand with and for mothers and advocate for solutions that will reduce maternal stress and benefit women, families and the country.]

She’s making history and honoring her mother’s memory. This week when Joe Biden made California Sen. Kamala Harris his running mate he also made her the first Black woman and the first South Asian American to be the vice-presidential nominee of a major party.

And Harris says she owes her success to her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, an immigrant from India who became a cancer researcher and an inspiration to her daughters.

Harris’s sister Maya reminded the world of that this week when she reposted a video from Harris’s presidential campaign.

Kamala Harris was inspired by her mother and as stepmother to her husband Doug’s two children, Cole and Ella, she honors her mom every day, as a politician and as a stepmom, although her kids don’t call her that.

“My family means everything to me,” she said Wednesday in her first speech as Biden’s running mate. “I’ve had a lot of titles over my career and vice-president will be great, but ‘Momala’ will always be the one that means the most.”

She is now speaking with and running beside Joe Biden, but just months ago, during the first round of Democratic primary debates, she made headlines when she challenged Biden after he talked about his record of working with racist, segregationist lawmakers in earlier decades.

Taking on Biden’s record of opposition to bussing as a means to integrate schools, Harris said: “There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”

It was a powerful moment in the debate and now, in America’s political history.

And when paid parental leave (a matter of incredible importance to mothers) was finally addressed in the Democratic debates last year, Harris was among those bringing it up, pointing out that paid leave is essential not just for moms but for all women as the burden of not just childcare but also caring for sick or elderly family members often falls to women. There’s so much inequality in the United States, and paid leave would address the uneven division of domestic and unpaid labor as well as the pay gap, which hurts BIPOC women most of all.

Here’s where Harris stands on issues that will be critical in this election:

Paid leave: As originally noted on her presidential campaign website, “Harris will fight for the FAMILY Act to provide workers with up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave” and her Children’s Agenda includes plans for “up to 6 months of paid family and medical leave for workers nationwide.”

Childcare costs: Harris wants to pass the Child Care for Working Families Act, which would see caps on the amount of money low- and middle-income families pay for childcare (with some families paying nothing) and would invest in childcare providers. She also supports extending the school day to close the after school care gap.

Health care: Harris wants to see Medicare for All “cover all medically necessary services, including emergency room visits, doctor visits, vision, dental, hearing aids, mental health, and substance use disorder treatment, and comprehensive reproductive health care services”.