translated from Spanish: [VIDEO] Kamala Harris and her promotion to the U.S. vice presidency: “We did it”

Kamala Harris made history Saturday as america’s first black woman elected as vice president, breaking down barriers that have kept men, almost all white, entrenched at the highest levels of American politics for more than two centuries. The 56-year-old California senator, also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, represents the multiculturalism that defines the United States, but is largely absent from Washington’s power centers. His black identity has allowed him to speak in personal terms in a year of account adjustment about police brutality and systemic racism. Harris has been a rising star in Democratic politics for much of the past two decades, and served as a San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before becoming a U.S. senator. After Harris finished his own 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, Joe Biden chose her as his co-star. They’ll be sworn in as president and vice president on January 20. The election of Biden’s running mate had additional significance because he will be the 78-year-old president who has taken office at the age of 78, and has not pledged to seek a second term in 2024.Harris often framed his candidacy as part of the often undervalued legacy of pioneering black women who preceded it, including educator Mary McLeod Bethune , civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first black candidate to seek an important party.” They often don’t teach us their stories,” Harris said in August in accepting his party’s vice presidency nomination. “But as Americans, we all lean on their shoulders.” That story was in Sara Twyman’s mind recently as she watched Harris’ Campaign in Las Vegas and wore a hoodie named after the senator next to Chisholm.” It’s about time a woman reached the highest levels of our government,” said Twyman, who is 35 years old and black. Despite the excitement surrounding Harris, she and Biden face great challenges, including deepening racial tensions in the U.S. Following a pandemic that has charged a disproportionate price among African-Americans and a series of police killings of black Americans. Harris’s previous work as a prosecutor has led to skepticism among progressive voters and young people who expect her to support radical institutional change over gradual reforms in the police, drug policies, and more. Jessica Byrd, who leads the Black Lives Movement’s Electoral Justice Project and The Frontline, a multiracial coalition effort to galvanize voters, said she plans to participate in the rigorous organizational work needed to push Harris and Biden toward more progressive policies.” I believe deeply in the power of black women’s leadership, even when all our policies don’t align,” Byrd said. “I want us to be committed to the idea that representation is exciting and worthy of celebration and also that we have millions of black women who deserve a fair chance.” Harris is the second black woman elected to the Senate. His colleague, Senator Cory Booker, who is also black, said his mere presence makes the institution “more accessible to more people” and suggested that he would achieve the same with the vice presidency. Harris was born in 1964 to two active parents in the civil rights movement. Shyamala Gopalan of India and Donald Harris of Jamaica met at the University of California, Berkeley, then a hotbed of 1960s activism. They divorced when Harris and her sister were girls, and Harris was raised by her late mother, whom she considers the most important influence in her life. Kamala means “lotus flower” in Sanskrit, and Harris nodded to his Indian heritage throughout the campaign, even with a call to herThe mockery of her name by Republicans, including Trump, was just one of the attacks Harris faced. Trump and his allies sought to label her radical and socialist despite her more centrist record, an effort to inconvenience people with a black woman’s perspective on leadership. She was the target of online misinformation mixed with racism and sexism about her qualifications to serve as president. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington said Harris’ power comes not only from her life experience, but also from the personas he already represents. California is the most populous state in the country and one of the most diverse; almost 40% of people are Latino and 15% are Asian. In Congress, Harris and Jayapal have teamed up on bills to ensure the legal representation of Muslims subject to Trump’s 2017 travel ban and to extend rights to domestic workers.” That’s the kind of policy that also happens when there are voices like ours at the table,” said Jayapal, who in 2016 was the first South Asian woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Harris won the Senate election that same year. Harris’ mother raised her daughters with the understanding that the world would see them as black women, Harris said, and that’s how she describes herself today. She attended Howard University, one of the country’s historically black colleges and universities, and committed to Alpha Kappa Alpha, the country’s first women’s sorority created by and for black women. He campaigned regularly at HBCUs and sought to address the concerns of young black men and women eager to make great efforts to dismantle systemic racism. Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, whose children from a previous marriage call her “Momala.” Friends Sarah Lane and Kelli Hodge, each with three daughters, took the six girls to a Harris rally in Phoenix in the final days of the race. “This car is full of girls who dream big. Come on Kamala! is read on a sign glued with duct tape to the trunk of the car. Lane, a 41-year-old lawyer of Hispanic and Asian descent, volunteered for Biden and Harris, the first time she has worked for a political campaign. When asked why he had brought his daughters, 6, 9, and 11, to see Harris, he replied, “I want my daughters to see what women can do.”

Original source in Spanish