Calling Kamala Harris "victorious", posters of the Indian-American California senator have cropped up in Tamil Nadu. Meena Harris, the niece of the US vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, on Sunday took to Twitter to share a glimpse of one such poster featuring Kamala Harris.
The poster says “PV Gopalan’s granddaughter is victorious” in Tamil.
The 35-year-old California-based lawyer mentioned in her tweet that the photo of the poster was sent to her from Tamil Nadu.
In her tweet, Meena Harris said, “I was sent this from Tamil Nadu where our Indian family is from. It says ‘PV Gopalan's granddaughter is victorious’. I knew my great grandfather from our family trips to Chennai when I was young -- he was a big figure for my grandma and I know they're together somewhere smiling now.”
I was sent this from Tamil Nadu where our Indian family is from. It says “PV Gopalan’s granddaughter is victorious.” I knew my great grandfather from our family trips to Chennai when I was young—he was a big figure for my grandma and I know they’re together somewhere smiling now. pic.twitter.com/WuZiKimmqj— Meena Harris (@meenaharris) August 16, 2020
The poster comes days after Joe Biden named Kamala Harris as his running mate, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on a major party's presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump.
Harris, a 55-year-old first-term senator, is also one of the party's most prominent figures and quickly became a top contender for the No. 2 spot after her own White House campaign ended.
Harris, who is also Indian American, joins Biden in the 2020 race at a moment of unprecedented national crisis. If elected, she would be the first woman vice president ever for the country.
She was born to a Jamaican father, Donald Harris, and an Indian mother, Shyamala Gopalan, on October 20 in 1964, at Oakland in California.
Her mother migrated to the US from Tamil Nadu in India, while her father, Donald J Harris, moved to the US from Jamaica. "When my mother, Shyamala stepped off the plane in California as 19 years old, she didn't have much in the way of belongings. But she carried with her lessons from back home, including ones she learned from her parents, my grandmother Rajan, and her father, my grandfather P V Gopalan. They taught her that when you see injustice in the world, you have an obligation to do something about it," Harris said.
"Growing up, my mother would take my sister Maya and me back to what was then called Madras because she wanted us to understand where she had come from and where we had ancestry. And of course, she always wanted to instill in us, a love of good idli," Harris said. "In Madras I would go on long walks with my grandfather, who at that point was retired. We would take morning walks where I'd hold his hand and he would tell me about the heroes who are responsible for the birth of the world's biggest democracy. He would explain that it's on us to pick up where they left off. Those lessons are a big reason why I am who I am today, Harris said explaining the deep influence of the Indian heritage on her.
Harris' record as California attorney general and district attorney in San Francisco was heavily scrutinized during the Democratic primary and turned off some liberals and younger Black voters who saw her as out of step on issues of systemic racism in the legal system and police brutality. She tried to strike a balance on these issues, declaring herself a "progressive prosecutor" who backs law enforcement reforms.
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