Kamala Harris' mother Shyamala Gopalan was a breast cancer specialist Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago today and remembered her Indian-origin mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris before a rapturous crowd. Taking center stage on the last day of the Democratic Party convention, she said her mother was only 19 when she crossed the world alone, travelling from India to California with an "unshakeable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer". "My mother Shyamala Harris had one of her own.
I miss her every day -- especially now. And I know she's looking down tonight, and smiling," she told the gathering in Chicago. ".
.. It was mostly my mother who raised us.
Before she could finally afford to buy a home, she rented a small apartment in the East Bay. In the Bay, you either live in the hills or the flatlands. We lived in the flats -- a beautiful working-class neighbourhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all of whom tended their lawns with pride," Ms Harris added.
Shyamala Gopalan Harris was a breast cancer specialist who emigrated from Tamil Nadu in 1960 to pursue a doctorate in endocrinology at the University of California Berkeley. ALSO READ | "When My Mother Came From India, She Didn't Imagine..
.": Kamala Harris "When she finished school, she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage, but as fate would have it, she met my father, Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and go.