*ISLAMABAD – Senator Kamala Harris announced Monday that she is seeking tobecome the first African American woman to hold the office of US president,joining an already-crowded field of Democrats lining up to take on DonaldTrump.*
“The future of our country depends on you and millions of others liftingour voices to fight for our American values. That’s why I’m running forpresident of the United States,” the senator from California said in avideo posted on Twitter.
Harris – who made the announcement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day – joinsSenator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Hawaii Congresswoman TulsiGabbard, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and former housing secretaryJulian Castro, among others, either in the race or exploring a run for the2020 Democratic nomination.
Nearly 22 months before the 2020 election, the battle for the White Houseis already firming up, as Americans begin to assess who might be theopposition party nominee to challenge Trump for control of the White House.
Harris’s calls for unity in her newly published memoir – “The Truths WeHold: An American Journey,” from Penguin Press – clearly set the tone forwhat a Harris candidacy might mean in an America sorely divided by Trump’sunsettling presidency.
After two terms as district attorney of San Francisco (2004-2011), she wastwice elected as attorney general of California (2011-2017), becoming thefirst woman and the first black person to serve as chief law enforcementofficer of that populous state.
Then in January 2017, she took the oath of office as California’s junior USsenator, making her the first woman of South Asian descent (her mother is aTamil Indian) and only the second black woman senator in American history,after Carol Moseley Braun.
Her focused and often tough-sounding lines of questioning during closelywatched Senate hearings reflect her past as a prosecutor.Daughter of immigrants
Harris often proudly recalls that as a prosecutor she fought big banksduring the 2008 financial crisis.
She casts herself as a champion of middle-class families “living paycheckto paycheck” and denounces police brutality and the killing of unarmedblack men.
The daughter of immigrants – her father is from Jamaica – Harris grew up inthe 1960s in the progressive hotbed of Oakland, California, proud of thestruggle her parents waged for civil rights.
“My mother was the strongest person I have ever known,” she has written onTwitter.
Mother Shyamala was only 19 when she came to the United States in 1960 topursue her studies in California, eventually becoming a renowned cancerresearcher.
Harris mentions her father, Donald, as well, calling him “a respectedeconomist” who is an emeritus professor at Stanford University.
But after her parents separated when she was about five years old, it wasKamala’s mother who raised her and her younger sister, Maya, who went on tobecome a lawyer and an advisor to Hillary Clinton during the 2016presidential campaign.
Hers was a happy childhood, Harris now says, where education was highlyvalued, and it inspired her to write her second new book, “Superheroes AreEverywhere,” a children’s picture book that was also published last week.
But Harris has also experienced discrimination.
“I have too many memories of my brilliant mother being treated as thoughshe were dumb because of her accent,” she wrote in her autobiography.
Asked about that, she shared some tough words about Republican PresidentTrump.
“There are powerful forces — including this president — that are attemptingto vilify immigrants because they were born in another country,” she saidrecently on CNN. – APP/AFP