Kamala Harris is hoping to win in November and go on to represent what she described in her acceptance speech last night as ‘everyday Americans’, at last night’s rousing DNC show stopper speech, where she formally accepted nomination she promised to ‘chart a new way forward.’
As the child of immigrant parents from India and Jamaica, she became the first female VP and first woman of color to hold the second highest rank of office in the United States.
She would also be one of the first people to take high office with a blended family, having married lawyer-turned-Georgetown professor Doug Emhoff in 2014, taking his two children under her wing.
MailOnline takes a look the roots of Kamala Harris’ blended family and how it has grown over the years.
Harris was born in October 1964 in Oakland, California, to immigrant parents from India and Jamaica.
Vice President Kamala Harris is known simply as ‘Momala’ to her two stepkids Cole and Ella, who are the children of her husband Doug Emhoff
Kamala Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan (pictured) was a prominent scientist who worked to further understand breast cancer
Kamala Harris’ dad, Donald Harris (pictured, centre), is a professor emeritus in economics at Stanford University
Her mom, Shyamala Gopalan, was a prominent scientist who worked to further understand breast cancer after leaving Chennai, India.
Her dad, Donald J. Harris, is an economist became professor emeritus at Stanford University.
After her own education and career, she went on to marry Doug Emhoff, and help raise his children, Cole and Ella, as her own.
The vice president has said that Shyamala, who grew up all over India due to her father’s job in the country’s civil service, always pushed her and her sister, Maya, to become better versions of themselves.
Harris said in her 2018 memoir: ‘She had only two goals in life: to raise her two daughters and to end breast cancer. She pushed us hard and with high expectations as she nurtured us.’
Shyamala, who passed away in 2009, was a bold, strong character in her own right, she said: ‘My mother was barely five foot one, but I felt like she was six foot two. She was smart and tough and fierce and protective. She was generous, loyal, and funny.’
Her boldness was apparent from a young age, having secretly applied to study biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, after being forced to read Home Science in India.
It was here at Berkeley in 1962, a time of sweeping social change, that she met the vice president’s father, just two years before she gave birth to Kamala.
Shyamala, a proud support of the Civil Rights Movement, joined a black intellectual study group, known as the Afro American Association.
There, she was left impressed at the intellectual prowess of Jamaican PhD student, Donald Harris, who was giving a speech at the time.
Kamala Harris, back row at left, in an undated family photo. Next to her, from left, are her grandmother Rajam Gopalan, grandfather P.V. Gopalan and sister, Maya Harris. With them are Maya’s daughter, Meena, left, and Harris’ cousin Sharada Balachandran Orihuela.
The vice president said her mother pushed her and her sister Maya (pictured, right) hard
Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris (pictured, right) met while studying at UC Berkeley
The pair got chatting, and as the only two non-Americans at a discussion of the complexities of the racism built into America, they bonded and quickly fell in love.
But their marriage fell apart after Donald took a teaching job at the University of Wisconsin, when Kamala was five.
The Democratic nominee wrote in her memoir: ‘I knew they loved each other very much, but it seemed they’d become like oil and water. I think, for my mother, the divorce represented a kind of failure she had never considered.
‘Her marriage was as much an act of rebellion as an act of love. Explaining it to her parents had been hard enough. Explaining the divorce, I imagine, was even harder.’
Despite the loss of her marriage, or perhaps because of it, she threw herself into her work, conducting research in UC Berkeley’s Department of Zoology and Cancer Research Lab, the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin.
She also worked at Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University Faculty of Medicine, and became such an esteemed expert on breast cancer that she was invited onto the President’s Special Commission on Breast Cancer.
Shyamala Gopalan, the mother of Kamala Harris, addresses the crowd at the kickoff of her daughter’s campaign for San Francisco district attorney.
Kamala Harris, left, with her sister Maya and mother Shyamala. Her parents divorced when she was a young age.
Kamala Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan, left, and college friend Lenore Pomerance at a protest on the UC Berkeley campus.
For the last decade of her working life, she worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she made strides in breast cancer research.
Her father was equally impressive, having been a professor at the University of Illinois, Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin before landing at Stanford University as a professor of economics.
He was also a visiting fellow at Cambridge University and the Delhi School of Economics, and was a visiting professor at Yale.
The New York Times described him as ‘a prominent critic of mainstream economic theory from the left.’
One of his former students at Stanford, Robert A. Blecker, now a professor of economics at American University, said Donald was never afraid to speak his mind.
Blecker told the New York Times: ‘He was certainly very outspoken and prominent in the profession at one time, but not in a public way. He was certainly not shy.’
Blecker said that Donald’s willingness to speak out against injustice was reflected ‘when I saw Kamala grill Judge Kavanaugh’ during his confirmation hearing for the US Supreme Court.
‘I saw echoes of her father grilling someone in a seminar.’
Harris is married to lawyer Doug Emhoff, who over the past three and a half years has enthusiastically taken on the role as first second gentleman, traveling to more than 30 states and 14 countries as a representative of the U.S. and the Biden administration.
Not only is Emhoff the first second gentleman, he is also the first Jewish spouse of an American vice president or president.
Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff arriving at the White House on March 21, 2023
If Harris is elected president, Emhoff would be the first First Gentleman. He is already the first Jewish spouse of any president or vice president
He has been a leading voice in the administration on combatting antisemitism and has convened Jewish leaders and others at the White House and across the country.
Emhoff has also been a prominent voice when it comes to addressing gender equality and justice.
A lawyer for more than 30 years, Emhoff has advocated for legal aid and has taught at the Georgetown University Law Center.
Emhoff and Harris married in August 2014. At the time, he was a lawyer in Los Angeles and she was serving as California attorney general.
Before joining Harris in Washington, Emhoff was a partner at the law firm DLA Piper.
He first took a temporary leave of absence from the firm ahead of the 2020 election as the campaign season kicked into high gear. He officially left the partnership when Biden and Harris won the election and started the transition to the White House.
An image of the second gentleman hugging wife Vice President Kamala Harris posted on Instagram
Doug Emhoff holding the bible as his wife Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first woman Vice President of the United States by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Janury 20, 2021
Before joining DLA Piper, Emhoff worked for the corporate firm Venable where some of his client roster raised eyebrows.
The second gentleman once represented the arms dealer Dolarian Capital in a case related to the sale of AK-47s to be used in Afghanistan as well as the pharmaceutical giant Merck in lawsuits related to its drug Fosamax, the New York Times reported.
Harris is now stepmom to Emhoff’s two adult children, Ella and Cole.
In 2019, she wrote an essay where she described her stepkids as her ‘endless source of love and pure joy’ and explained how the name ‘Momala’ came to be.
‘A few years later when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term “stepmom.” Instead they came up with the name “Momala,”‘ she penned in Elle Magazine.
The vice president has also praised Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin as someone who has become a ‘dear friend.’
Ella Emhoff, now 25-years-old, was an art student when Harris was picked as Biden’s running mate. She has since exploded onto the fashion and art scene as her stepmom became the first woman Vice President of the United States.
In January 2021, Emhoff signed with the international modeling agency IMG Models. She has since appeared in a series of prominent fashion campaigns, walked some of the biggest runway shows in the world and graced numerous red carpets including attending the Met Gala.
Ella Emhoff is the younger of Vice President Harris’ two stepkids. The 25-year-old made a splash in the fashion world since her stepmother became vice president as both a model and a designer of knitwears
Ella Emhoff attending the 2021 Met Gala in New York City. It’s known as the biggest night in fashion
Based in Brooklyn, Ella Emhoff has also been selling her own knitwear and art including portraits, jackets, hats, coats and even shorts which have been featured on her website and she frequently posts on her social media accounts.
While Emhoff has mostly stuck to fashion, her pro-Palestinian leanings have recently made waves with the war in Gaza.
As pro-Palestinian protests were taking place across the country in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Hamas attack, the second stepdaughter urged her more than 300,000 social media followers to donate to the U.N. agency accused of aiding Hamas.
After posting a link for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the largest employer in Gaza, she faced backlash from some critics and Jewish organizations which pointed out its alleged ties to the terrorist group.
There no longer appear to be fundraising links on her Instagram page.
30-year-old Cole Emhoff works on film productions in Los Angeles. He married Greenley Littlejohn last year. Vice President Harris officiated their wedding
Harris hugging her stepdaughter model Ella Emhoff
Lesser public is Harris’ stepson Cole Emhoff who lives in Los Angeles and works in entertainment like his mother.
Born in 1994, Cole Emhoff at 30-years-old is the elder of vice president’s stepchildren.
He was a senior in high school when Harris and his dad got together. He went off to Colorado College after graduating.
According to his IMDB page, he has worked on several movies including as an assistant on the 2020 award-winning film ‘Minari’ as well as the 2022 remake of ‘Father of the Bride.’
The vice president officiated his wedding in October 2023 when he married Greenley Littlejohn.
Cole Emhoff was asked about his dad and stepmother as couple in a New York Times interview just before she was sworn in as vice president.
‘It depends on the setting,’ he said. ‘Because Doug and Kamala together are like almost vomit-inducingly cute and coupley. I’m like, When is this going to wear off?’
He said they have always called Emhoff ‘Doug’ at home rather than ‘dad’ and explained it as a term of endearment.