Sen. Kamala Harris, the first black woman and Asian American to be a U.S. vice presidential nominee on a major-party ticket, is known as a skilled debater with a former prosecutor's toughness.

Harris, 55, was born in California to highly educated immigrant parents, her father having come from Jamaica and her mother from India. Her parents were active in the civil rights movement and took to the streets to protest, bringing the young Kamala along in her stroller.

Democratic vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) speaks on the third night of the Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center August 19, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Getty/Kyodo)

Her parents split when she was five years old and she and her younger sister were mostly raised by their mother, who instilled in them a sense of identity as "proud, strong black women" and also taught them to appreciate their Indian heritage, according to Harris.

After graduating from Howard University in Washington, one of the country's most prestigious historically black colleges, and attending the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, she began her career as a prosecutor.

In 2010, Harris became the first woman to be elected California attorney general, overseeing the country's second largest Justice Department, behind only the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 2016, she became the second black woman and the first South Asian-American to be elected to the Senate. She raised her profile during Senate hearings in 2018 through her sharp questioning of a Supreme Court nominee picked by President Donald Trump.

Although at one point dubbed "the female Barack Obama" after the Democrat who was the first African American president in U.S. history, she ended up quickly dropping out of the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race.

But she made history again in August as she became the first woman of color nominated to the second-highest office in the United States by a major party.

Harris married the lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014. Emhoff, whom Harris met on a blind date set up by her best friend, could become the country's first "second gentleman," a title referring to a male spouse of a vice president.

Harris is stepmother to Emhoff's two children, who call her "Momala" as a play on her first name.


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