" I'M GRATEFUL TO THIS WOMAN MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR MY PRESENCE HERE TODAY- KAMALA HARRIS. (PHOTO).
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"I'm grateful to the woman most responsible for my presence here today, my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn't imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in America where a moment like this is possible," said Kamala Harris.
Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who came to America young and alone, made a career as a breast cancer researcher before dying of cancer in 2009.
Harris remains close to her mother’s side of the family — one of her brightest childhood memories was walking down the beach hand in hand with her Indian grandfather, PV Gopalan.
In fact, it was her grandfather (a staunch supporter of women's education) who instilled confidence in 19-year-old Shyamala when she won admission to a PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley (without anyone in the family knowing she had applied).
He did not hesitate to pay, even though it was a lot of money for a civil servant.
"One thing that he strongly believed in was that, whether it is a son or a daughter, they must be equally educated. He was very progressive,” says Harris’s aunt, who became a well-known gynaecologist.
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