To understand the Kamala Harris story, one has to understand the story of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan. Her story is quintessentially American. And as with so many great American stories, it didn’t start in this country. It started in India.
Shyamala was born in the city of Madras (now Chennai). She was passionate about an area of work considered path-breaking for women in the 1950s: scientific research. In 1958, Shyamala enrolled at the University of California-Berkeley to study nutrition and endocrinology. She had never set foot in the United States before.
The above excerpt was originally published in USA Today.
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