Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) became the first black female candidate for vice president on Tuesday, when Joe Biden selected her as his running mate. But she is also the first Asian American candidate on a major presidential ticket.
As Breitbart News reported last year, Harris told a local Asian/Pacific Islander political organization in Nevada that she hoped to become the first Asian American president, given that her mother is Indian (i.e. from South Asia).
Breitbart News reported:
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) brought her presidential campaign to a Vietnamese restaurant in Sin City’s growing Chinatown, touting her candidacy as a chance to elect the first Asian-American U.S. president.
Harris’s mother is Indian; her father is Jamaican. She was born in Oakland and raised in Canada before returning to the U.S. to attend Howard University.
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Harris began her remarks by noting the importance of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and reminded the audience that she was also the first South Asian U.S. Senator.
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“I intend to be very active, and very vocal, in fighting for every vote, in particular the Asian vote,” she declared, saying she wanted to be a role model for Asian immigrants in encouraging more of them to run for public office.
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One woman asked Harris if she would commit to wearing traditional Indian garb at her inauguration, were she to become president. Harris politely demurred, saying she had to win first.
Last year, CNN host Don Lemon landed in hot water after attempting to argue that while Harris was black, she was not African American because of her father’s Jamaican roots.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.