Kamala Harris: portrait of a U.S. Vice President

It has been two years since the world watched as the United States made an important transition in 2020. At the time. Vogue (US) tried to paint a portrait of Kamala Harris: the first woman of color to become Vice President.

Unfortunately, the magazine's graphic design team was a little overzealous in the retouching, and Kamala Harris appeared much whiter on Vogue's February 2021 cover than she actually was, something that caused great controversy.

Who is Kamala Harris? Here we have a series of photos that will complete her portrait... without photoshop!

Kamala Harris successfully ran with Joe Biden against Donald Trump in the November 2020 presidential elections. A woman of immigrant descent, she is the first female Vice President of color in U.S. history.

Here we see the younger version of the Democratic Party's Vice President of the United States. Who is Kamala Harris and where does she come from?

Kamala Devi Harris is a Californian and was born on October 20, 1964 in Oakland (the quintessential multiracial city and headquarters of the Black Panthers in the '60s and '70s).

Photo: Instagram@vp

Harris grew up in Berkeley (another city with a progressive tradition in the state of California). When her parents divorced, she lived in Quebec for a while as a child.

Photo: Instagram@vp

Kamala Harris is of mixed descendance. Her mother was a Tamil Indian woman and her father came to the U.S. from Jamaica. The Indian village where her grandfather was born, Thulasendrapuram, was rooting for the campaign of "their daughter." This poster, reproduced in the Times of India, says that Kamala Harris is a 'Singapenn,' or "fearless or lion-hearted woman."

In the days after the Presidential Election of November 3, 2020, people in the Indian village of Thulasendrapuram prayed for Kamala Harris's victory as the first American Vice President of South Asian descent.

Photo by India's News18.

Kamala Harris grew up in a middle-class environment with few financial difficulties. She went to Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., and studied law in California, passing the bar exam in 1990.

Photo: Instagram@kamlaharris

Shortly after passing the bar, Harris became the Assistant Prosecutor in Alameda County. In 2003, she was elected San Francisco County Prosecutor.  Harris distinguished herself in that position by her promotion of reintegration programs and leniency towards criminals.

Harris was the center of a major controversy when she refused to seek the death penalty for a man who had murdered a policeman. At the officer's funeral, Senator and former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein publicly asked her to rethink this position. But Harris was adamant that the killer be sentenced to life in prison instead of the death penalty.

In November 2016, Kamala Harris was elected Senator on behalf of the state of California. As a legislator, she was known for her criticism of President Trump, who started his term at the same time as she did.

She's also a fierce - and to some, notorious - interrogator; a skill she developed in her prosecuting years. During senate hearings about Russia's involvement with the Trump campaign, or at Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh's conformation hearing, she has left several powerful men stumbling for words.

Kamala Harris has liberal convictions regarding the death penalty, termination of pregnancy, and gay rights. However, in general she is quite moderate. That is to say, even though she is a highly visible female of color in the Democratic Party and the Capitol, her political position has little to do with that of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the representative of a new socialism within the party.

Biden, a middle-of-the-road Democrat himself, chose a running mate who is historically unprecedented (a woman of color) but who's also a centrist in her politics. Picking a moderate companion, Biden opted to keep the establishment satisfied.

For two terms, Joe Biden was Barack Obama's vice president. The duo often made calls for consensus in the country. For Kamala Harris, Obama is a role model. He differs radically from Donald Trump, the president who has increased the sense of polarization in the U.S. in the past years.

Critics of Kamala Harris say there are some shadows in her record as a prosecutor. They have accused her of not having fought hard enough to overturn the many race-biased convictions that occurred while she was San Francisco County Prosecutor.

In addition, critics on the left say she's tainted by her past as a prosecutor in the 1990s, an era in which the "lock-'em-up mind-set" dominated the state, the LA Times says. Over the course of Harris's career as prosecutor, California came to incarcerate five times as many African-Americans as their share of California's population.

Kamala Harris grew up in an ethnically homogeneous neighborhood. As a student, she was bused to a school in another neighborhood as part of a government mandate to encourage racial diversity. This program of busing has always been heavily criticized by the right wing. Harris speaks favorably of it, though. She says it was a way of opening up her mind.

As published in various media, Kamala Harris preferred to avoid ideological labels. In her own primary campaign for president, she said, "I'm not trying to radically change society, I'm just trying to solve the problems that people think about when they go to bed."

While campaigning and fulfilling her usual tasks as Senator for the state of California, Harris also took the time to visit the areas struck by wildfires in the late summer of 2020.

Her support for the feminist movement is unquestionable, though. And,  she brought relative youth to the candidacy of Biden, who is in already in his late seventies.

In fact, Kamala could become the first pick for the 2024 presidential elections since Joe Biden will be in his eighties by that time. For this reason, people have watched Kamala Harris closely. She may be our next president sooner than we think.

American media often likes to focus on the color of Kamala's suit at important events, but Harris' choice of suits isn't for the reporters covering her. The color white stands for the right of women to vote and to hold political office. It's been 100 years since the United States anchored women's voting rights in its constitution with the 19th amendment.

Kamala Harris's private life appears quite secluded. She married Douglas Emhoff, a lawyer of Jewish descent, in 2014. Emhoff is the first Second Gentleman of the United States.

Apart from that, Kamala Harris's sister, Maya, is known as a political analyst for MSNBC.

The two girls on the stage with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, celebrating their electoral victory, are the grandchildren of Maya Harris. Their mother is Meena, Kamala Harris's niece.

As Vice-President, Kamala has been present at some of the country's most fundamental turning points. Recently she introduced a new student loan forgiveness program with Joe Biden and is currently in attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, working with allies and speaking out against North Korea's most missile provocation.

In all, Kamala has been an effective leader in the White House and a historic win for women of color everywhere. We could continue to expect an exciting period ahead as the 2024 presidential election campaign looms large.