The Story Behind The Woman Who Inspired Harris to Break Barriers

When Shyamala Gopalan approached her father with an acceptance letter to UC Berkeley and announced her dream of becoming a scientist, she was just 19 years old.

It was an unusual move by a woman whose own barrier-breaking choices would allow her daughter, Kamala Harris, to do the same. The vice president often cites her mom as an inspiration for her political career.

It was the late 1950s, and Gopalan was part of one of the first waves of Indian immigrants to the United States. “Anybody with a South Asian background, you’ll know that this was early, early, early,” Harris said, recounting the story in May at an event with the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies.

“She arrived in the United States by herself because she had a passion and she had a goal,” Harris said.

Gopalan’s research took her around the world

Gopalan wanted to cure breast cancer. Her work took her all over the world, doing research in France and Canada. For part of her childhood, Harris lived in Wisconsin because of her mother’s job.

In Oakland, California, Gopalan’s long hours meant Harris and her younger sister Maya sometimes spent time after school with their downstairs neighbor, Regina Shelton, who ran a daycare center. Harris considers Shelton a second mother. When she was sworn in as vice president, Harris used Shelton’s bible.

Harris’ father, Donald Harris, immigrated to the United States from Jamaica, but her parents split up when she was young. Carole Porter, a childhood friend of Harris’, says that Gopalan raised her daughters with both cultures, but knew that Kamala and Maya would be seen as Black women.

“In America, we’re considered Black women. And that’s how our mothers raised us because that’s what they knew we would be seen as,” said Porter, who also is biracial. “Regina Shelton was really helpful and supportive for Shyamala in doing that.”

Gopalan was there for her daughter’s first campaign

In Harris’ first political campaign to become district attorney of San Francisco, her mother was at campaign headquarters every weekend, friends and former staffers of Harris say.

“Sealing envelopes, making calls—she did the work—and making sure all the volunteers had coffee and donuts,” said Matthew Rothschild, a friend of Harris’ who was also close with her mother.

Rothschild said Harris inherited her mother’s love of cooking, her laugh and her sense of justice.

“If she ever felt that you weren’t being treated right or you were down in the dumps, or there was any injustice in your life or anything, she’d be the first person to call and say, ‘Are you okay?’” he said, describing Gopalan. “And then she’d be hard to get off the phone because she wouldn’t want to hang up unless she knew you were okay.”

Harris started at just 8% in the polls in the primary for that district attorney race. In her campaign, she would talk about her mother in speeches — telling the audience about how her mother was five feet tall, but it seemed like she was much taller. It’s a line Harris still uses to this day.

“She’s been saying that since 2003,” Rebecca Prozan, Harris’ campaign manager in that race said.

A cancer researcher diagnosed with cancer

Gopalan died of colon cancer in 2009 as Harris was running for attorney general of California.

Ten years later, when Harris ran for president the first time, she talked about her own experiences dealing with the health care system when her mother was going through chemotherapy.

“It is the experience of some doctor talking to you about — have you heard the term anticipatory grief — which is the grief that you experience when someone is still here but it weighs on you. The experience of trying to cook for somebody and hope that whatever I make is something you can hold down or you have an appetite for,” Harris said during an MSNBC town hall in May 2019.

“The experience of hoping when you’re going through chemotherapy that we can give you clothes that are soft enough because your skin is so sensitive. The experience of trying to make sure that the medication on each of the charts actually matches up,” she said.

In those months while Harris was running a campaign, and her mother was going through treatment, her friends took shifts to keep Gopalan company at the hospital. Rothschild was one of them.

“I would come in and sit with her and we would read the paper or watch the news or talk about Kamala,” he said.

Even then, Rothschild said Gopalan had a sense of humor. He recalled that one day when he went to the hospital, she had put a sign on the door: “No visitors today. Only the Rothschilds.”

“Here she was, she was dying… she had a great sense of humor, even in her pain,” he said. “I can see her laughing, with her shoulders moving up and down, sort of the way it does with Kamala.”

On the trail today, Harris tells her mother’s story

Since becoming vice president, Harris has continued talking about the advice she got from her mother.

One line is the now infamous coconut story, which inspired a wave of emojis on social media that signify support for Harris.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Harris said last year, quoting her mother. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

But Harris more often refers back to this line from her mother: Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.

It’s a line she referenced the night that she and President Biden won the election in 2020: “I may be the first woman to hold this office. But I won’t be the last.”

Transcript:

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST: Vice President Kamala Harris was the first woman and person of color to serve as district attorney of San Francisco and the second Black woman ever elected to the Senate. She’s also the first Black and South Asian woman to become vice president. For all the barriers Kamala Harris has broken, she didn’t do it alone. Her mother helped show her the way, as NPR’s White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram reports.

DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Kamala Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was 19 years old when she approached her father with a proposal. She wanted to go study to be a scientist, but not in Tamil Nadu, the state where Gopalan’s family lived in India. Shyamala wanted to go study science in a country where she knew no one at the University of California in Berkeley.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: She was part of one of the first waves of Indians to come in relative modern history to the United States, in the ’50s, right? So, anybody of South Asian background, you’ll know that this was early, early, early.

SHIVARAM: That’s the Vice President talking about her trailblazing mom at an event two months ago.

HARRIS: She arrived in the United States by herself because she had a passion and she had a goal.

SHIVARAM: It was at Berkeley that Shyamala met Donald Harris, an economic student from Jamaica. They were both interested in civil rights. The two were together for about a decade and had two daughters, Kamala and her younger sister, Maya.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HARRIS: Basically, her life was committed to two things — raising her two daughters and ending breast cancer.

SHIVARAM: Breast cancer research is what Shyamala worked on. The hours were relentless, and the days were long. Sometimes, Harris and her sister would stay with their downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Regina Shelton, who ran a daycare center. Harris’s childhood friend, Carole Porter, told NPR’s Ari Shapiro she remembers Shyamala from their neighborhood.

CAROLE PORTER: She had an air of confidence about her. She had an air of just integrity and strength. When you saw Shyamala, you said hello, Mrs. Harris.

SHIVARAM: Shyamala’s research also took her family around the country and around the world. Her first job was helping out in her mother’s research lab. But when it came time to pick her career path, Harris chose the law and of course, politics, and Shyamala was there to support her. Every weekend of Harris’ first campaign in 2003, Shyamala was at campaign headquarters.

MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD: Sealing envelopes, making calls — she did the work and made sure all the volunteers had coffee and doughnuts. She was extraordinary.

SHIVARAM: That’s Matthew Rothschild, a friend of Harris’, who was also close with her mother. He says Harris gets from Shyamala her love of cooking, her laugh, and her determination to right any wrongs. Here he is describing Shyamala.

ROTHSCHILD: If she ever felt that you weren’t being treated right or you were down in the dumps or there was any injustice in your life or anything, she’d be the first person to call — are you OK? What’s up? And then she would be hard to get off the phone because she wouldn’t want to hang up until she knew you were OK.

SHIVARAM: In 2009, Shyamala died of colon cancer shortly before Harris won her race for attorney general, before she met her husband Doug Emhoff, and before she embarked on her political career to Washington. But Harris keeps her mother’s memory and her advice top of mind. She often quotes her mother in speeches. There’s that now-famous coconut tree story, of course, but there’s also this — don’t let anyone tell you who you are. You tell them who you are, Shyamala would say.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HARRIS: She would often say to me, is Kamala, you may be the first to do many things. Make sure you’re not the last.

SHIVARAM: It’s a message Harris shares across the country and one that came up in New Orleans just two weeks before Harris would launch a presidential campaign breaking yet another barrier. She was taking pictures backstage and signed a poster that echoed her mother’s words. It read first but not the last.

Deepa Shivaram, NPR News.