Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's new running mate, was announced on August 11. As his running mate, Joe Biden made a groundbreaking decision, picking a woman of color to be vice president and, possibly, a successor in the White House someday.
Kamala Harris became the district attorney and the top prosecutor for San Francisco in 2003, before being elected the first woman and the first black person to serve as California's attorney general.
The California Democrat, Kamala Harris, was born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents: an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father. Ms. Harris was raised primarily by her Hindu single mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher, and civil rights activist.
Being a proud Black woman, She grew up engaged with her Indian heritage, joining her mother on visits to India.
Kamala Harris's autobiography states, "my mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women."
Ms. Harris says she's always been comfortable with her identity and simply describes herself as "an American".
On talk shows, she calls for changes to police practices across the US, on Twitter, she calls for the arrests of the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman from Kentucky, and she speaks frequently about the need to dismantle systemic racism.
When it comes to the contested progressive push to "defund" the police - the call for police departments' budgets to be slashed and funds diverted to social programs - which is opposed by Mr. Biden, Ms Harris hedges, calling instead for a "reimagining" of public safety.
Ms Harris has often said that her identity makes her uniquely suited to represent those on the margins. Now that Mr Biden has named her as his running mate, she might get a chance to do just that from inside the White House.
