This biography was published in 2019, so this book is the story of Harris’ childhood and career till then: as district attorney for San Francisco, then as California’s attorney general, before becoming California’s US Senator. One reads keeping in mind of course that this is written to portray Harris in a very particular light, to frame her as she wants to be seen and remembered.
Harris tells us her childhood was happy. Her parents met at the University of Berkeley, her father from Jamaica and her mother from India. Despite her parents’ separation when she was five, Harris depicts her upbringing as secure and loving. It is almost too rosy a picture – there is no mention of tensions, of family disagreements. Everyone seems so reasonable, so amicable, so mutually supportive. Even her parents’ separation is glossed over:
They stopped being kind to each other (p4)
– as euphemistic a way of saying they began to quarrel, as I have ever seen anywhere! And right in the next sentence, she insists,
I knew they loved each other very much… (p4).
She also goes on to put the blame for the separation of her parents on their youth:
I’ve often thought that had they been a little older, more emotionally mature, maybe the marriage could have survived. But they were so young (p4).
She also cleverly tells us that they did not fight over money when they divorced, they only fought about who would get the books, to make it clear to the reader her parents are non-materialistic, and they were the kind who treasure books above status symbols or wealth.
It is interesting that Harris’ ‘family’ has always included relatives, close friends, close colleagues, and not only blood kin. She depicts herself as being very embedded in her community, getting a lot of support from them, and trying to give a lot back. She tells us about the many capable and wonderful people she has been surrounded by and who have helped her in her career – and makes she applauds and gives credit, especially to the women of colour. The most resonant note in this biography is how Harris hero-worships her mother. Apart from the pride she takes in her own career trajectory and achievements, the other key theme in the book is the tributes to her mother. She is very proud of being part of ‘Shyamala Harris and the girls’.
She gives all credit to her mother for shaping herself and her sister into the women they would become.
And she was extraordinary. My mother was barely five foot one, but I felt like she was six foot two. She was smart and tough and fierce and protective. She was generous, loyal, and funny. She had only two goals in life: to raise her two daughters and to end breast cancer. She pushed us hard and with high expectations as she nurtured us. And all the while, she made Maya and me feel special, like we could do anything we wanted to if we put in the work (p7).
It seemed that her mother set the tone for all Harris herself would become, laid the foundation, gave her the personal tools she would need.
It is interesting that not only was Harris herself raised in a household and community of political activism, her grandmother was also raised that way, and indeed, her grandmother in India too. Her maternal grandfather (a senior diplomat) had been part of the movement to win India’s independence. Harris writes that her mother
developed a keen political consciousness. She was conscious of history, conscious of struggle, conscious of inequities. She was born with a sense of justice imprinted on her soul (p7)
Harris tells us her parents brought her as a young child in a stroller to civic rights marches. Unwritten but implied, is that she, like her mother, was brought up with that keen political consciousness too.
Because Harris tells us how her mother embedded her own values in her daughters, when Harris writes in tribute of her mother’s convictions and praises them, she is actually also basking in the reflected glory, and letting the reader understand she herself, Harris, therefore stands for all the same excellent values too. It is as if she uses her mother’s convictions to stamp authority on her own. For example, she writes of her mother:
She saw the dignity in the work that society requires to function. She believed that everyone deserves respect for the work they do, and that hard effort should be rewarded and honored” (p214).
Implicit is that this is what Harris sees and believes too, but backed further and both boosted and consecrated by parental authority. As a reader, it comes across as quite sincere, even if the representation is designed to be devices of persuasion.
Harris is very careful to strike a balance – she does not want to portray herself as tied to her mother’s apron strings, however much she admires her mother. So in the depiction of her running for her various posts in public service, her mother is not mentioned as much as you might expect, is kept in the background and seen only as very supportive and proud of her daughter. While this is probably the truth of the matter that Harris navigated her own path rather than running back to her mother for every little decision, it is also very skilfully written so that what is conveyed is the sense of Harris the professional doing it on her own, with work colleagues supporting her.
The book reads well, because Harris has a nice style of writing. A bit oratory, a bit declamatory, a bit grandiose, but not to any absurd degree. It comes across as passionate and sincere, despite the touches of grand standing. It is fluent, engaging, persuasive, and because this reader happens to share most of the values of ‘Shyamala Harris and the girls’, it makes very pleasing reading. It is clear that Harris seems to think their values should be shared by any right thinking American, and indeed, human. It is of course of great interest to follow her story of how she rose from one post to another, always seeming fully dedicated to public service, to getting justice, to righting wrongs. (Oh dear, I seem to have caught some of her oratory style!)
In her acknowledgements, as you might expect, she duly thanks all the people she has shown us are important in her life, and saves her mother for the last:
What it meant to be Shyamala Harris. And what it means to be her daughter” (p286)
It is very interesting that she chooses to end on that resonance, that she sees herself as her mother’s daughter. The Harris who comes across in this book is a rather likeable person. She clearly wants us to know she works hard even as she is ambitious. She wants us to know she is a fighter, who will not give up. This is the image she wants to portray of herself, and indeed, I suppose the image she has to portray, in her chosen career and in her aspirations. I will concur readily that if she holds true to how she depicts herself as being, then these would indeed seem to be good hands in which to place American leadership. So the book has probably achieved its aims: it has made Harris accessible and likeable, and it has inspired confidence in her.
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