See Photos of Kamala Harris Throughout Her Life (2024)

In January 2021, Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to serve as Vice President of the United States. She also made history as the first Black woman and the first South Asian woman to be a major political party's nominee for president.

Harris, born October 20, 1964, is the older daughter of Donald J. Harris, an economist from Jamaica, and Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer researcher from India. She has one sister, Maya Harris, and a niece, Meena Harris. In 2014, Harris married California lawyer Doug Emhoff, who has two children from his previous marriage, Cole and Ella. (More on Kamala Harris's family tree here.) And a note on her name: Kamala is pronounced "comma-la," and it means lotus flower. As she writes in her memoir, The Truths We Hold, "A lotus flower grows underwater, its flower rising above the surface while its roots are planted firmly in the river bottom."

Here, take a look back at Kamala Harris's life in photos—and see where her roots are:

A baby Kamala Harris is fed by her mom, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. "At twenty-five years old, Mommy had a college degree, a PhD, and me," Harris writes in her memoir.

Here, Kamala's dad, Donald Harris, carries her. "Proud daddy on his way to a doctorate in economics at Berkeley," she notes in her memoir.

These two snaps show a baby Kamala with her mom.

"Visiting my uncle Freddy in Harlem," Harris writes. "Harlem was always a magical place for me." Here, a baby Kamala eats a snow cone.

Harris's younger sister, Maya Harris, was born in January 1967. These photos show the sisters together a few months after Maya arrived.

The Harris sisters on Christmas in 1968. "Sisters waiting for Santa Claus," Kamala captions the photo in her memoir.

"Mommy, Maya, and me outside of our apartment on Milvia Street after my parents separated," Harris writes about this photo. "From then on, we were known as Shyamala and the girls."

Kamala, center, poses for a photo with her mom (standing behind her), her sister (bottom left), and her grandparents, P. V. Gopalan and Rajam Gopalan.

Kamala holds hands with her younger sister.

A young Kamala Harris graduates from Howard in 1986. "Howard is an institution with an extraordinary legacy, one that has endured and thrived since its founding, two years after the civil wrote," she wrote in her memoir. "It endured when the doors of higher education were largely closed to black students. It endured when segregation and discrimination were the law of the land. It endured when few recognized the potential and capacity of young black men and women to be leaders."

After Howard, Harris attended University of California Hastings College of Law. Here she is at graduation with her mom, center, and her first grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, left.

This photo shows Kamala with her mom, Shyamala (center), her sister Maya (left), and her niece Meena.

In 1998, her sister, Maya, married Tony West. Here are the sisters at the wedding.

"I loved having my mother with me at community events," Harris writes in her memoir. Here are the two women at a Chinese New Year parade.

Harris, then District Attorney for San Francisco, stands for a portrait. Per her official White House bio, as DA, "she was a national leader in the movement for LGBTQ+ rights, officiating the first same-sex wedding after Proposition 8 was overturned. She also established the office’s environmental justice unit and created a ground-breaking program to provide first-time drug offenders with the opportunity to earn a high school degree and find employment, which the U.S. Department of Justice designated as a national model of innovation for law enforcement."

From left to right, Tony West, Kamala, Maya Harris, Meena Harris, and Tony's parents Frank and Peggy look up poll results in the Attorney General election. Harris won.

In 2011, Harris was sworn as California Attorney General. As AG, her bio notes, "she oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. She took on those who were preying on the American people, winning a $20 billion settlement for Californians whose homes had been foreclosed on and a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company. She also defended the Affordable Care Act in court and enforced environmental laws."

Harris at the California Democrats State Convention in San Diego. Her pearl necklace became a signature style.