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Kamala Harris has made history as the first Black and South Asian-American to be elected as the Vice President of the United States. While we have all been rejoicing, no one is celebrating Harris more than her family. Her sister, Maya, let off a series of celebratory tweets acknowledging her sister’s huge victory and historic moment. In one of her tweets, she said she was sure that their late mother would be proud.
“Mommy taught us we could be and do anything,” she tweeted. “She would be beyond proud today.”
Their mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, died in 2009.
She also posted some witty tweets like “From Oaktown to the Oval, y’all!” and “From Howard to the House,” referring to Harris being a graduate of Howard University. The day after her sister won the election she tweeted: “Woke up this morning relieved and grateful that decency, honesty and compassion won. So much hard work ahead, but savoring this moment.”
During her victory speech on November 8, 2020, Kamala Harris acknowledged her mother’s influence.
“To the woman most responsible for my presence here today, my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who is always in our hearts. When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn’t quite imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible, and so I am thinking about her and about the generations of women, Black women, Asian, white, Latina, native American women, who throughout our nation’s history, have paved the way for this moment tonight.”
Harris’ niece, Meena, also celebrated her via social media. On Twitter, she noted that this moment is like a breath of fresh air.
“What an enormous weight we’ve carried the last 4 years that’s now been lifted off all of our shoulders—a sigh of relief heard around the world,” she wrote.” Now the work begins.”
See their tweets below.
