3. A multicultural childhood
Kamala Harris maintained the connection to her father and his family, but it was more her mother that got the biggest influence on both her and her sister.
The Harris sisters experienced a vibrant, multicultural upbringing.
She talks about how she and her friends were cooking Indian food together and painting their hands with henna, which made her never feel like she didn’t belong to her cultural roots.
Her family frequently traveled to Jamaica and India, which led to her broad appreciation of the varieties of cultures worldwide.
When Kamala was in middle school, her mom decided to take a job at McGill University in Canada due to her unpleasant experiences with racism and sexism at Berkeley. This led to Kamala finishing high school in Montreal.
When she came back to the US for college, she didn’t choose Berkeley and intended Howard University in Washington, which was known to be historically black.
After graduation, she took the bar exam on her second attempt and went back to California to start her career as a prosecutor.
