Kamala Harris, the country\u2019s first female vice president, is no stranger to being the first in many rooms. Now that she\u2019s the likely Democratic nominee in 2024, Harris has the chance to make history again.<\/p>\n
As a woman of color, and the daughter of two immigrants, Harris, 59, has talked about the responsibility to blaze a trail for others who follow. \u201cMy mother had a saying: \u2018Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you\u2019re not the last,\u2019\u201d she said in an interview in 2019. \u201cThat\u2019s how I think about those kinds of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here is a look at the many firsts of Harris\u2019s career and some that might await her if she\u2019s nominated or elected as president.<\/p>\n
First female president: The United States has never elected a woman to the White House. Since the first U.S. president was elected in 1789, all 45 have been men.<\/span> First Black woman: While several women have run for president, Hillary Clinton in 2016 was the only woman to win the nomination of a major political party.<\/span> First female vice president: When Harris was sworn in as vice president on Jan. 20, 2021, she became the first woman to hold the role. In her victory speech after the result in November \u2014 in which she wore all white as a nod to the suffragists who fought for the right to vote \u2014 Harris had said that \u201cwhile I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.\u201d<\/span> Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kamala Harris, the country\u2019s first female vice president, is no stranger to being the first in many rooms. Now that she\u2019s the likely Democratic nominee in 2024, Harris has the chance to make history again. As a woman of color, and the daughter of two immigrants, Harris, 59, has talked about the responsibility to blaze […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFirst Black female president: After his 2008 election, Barack Obama became the first Black president of the United States. Harris \u2014 the daughter of two immigrants, a Jamaican man and an Indian woman \u2014 lived a proudly African American life growing up in California. She attended civil rights marches in a stroller; was bused with other Black kids to an elementary school in a wealthier White neighborhood; and she worshiped at an African American church. She also attended historically Black Howard University.<\/span>
\nFirst Asian American president: Harris, whose parents met as students at the University of California at Berkeley, would be the first Asian American to become president if she wins. Harris, who along with her sister, Maya, was brought up by her mother after her parents divorced when she was 7, also grew up embracing her Indian culture \u2014 and would be the first president of Indian descent. Harris\u2019s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a cancer researcher who immigrated to the United States from India.<\/span><\/p>\nIf Harris wins Democratic nomination<\/h3>\n
\nFirst from a western state: The Democratic Party has never had a presidential nominee from the west, a 2019 analysis from the FiveThirtyEight found. By contrast, Republicans nominated a westerner for president eight times, the report said. The state that produced the most Democratic nominees was New York.<\/span><\/p>\nFirsts as vice president<\/h3>\n
\nFirst Black vice president: Harris told The Washington Post in a previous interview that her African American background \u201caffected everything\u201d about who she is. \u201cGrowing up as a Black person in America made me aware of certain things that, maybe if you didn\u2019t grow up Black in America, you wouldn\u2019t be aware of,\u201d she said. For example: \u201cRacism,\u201d she said.<\/span>
\nFirst South Asian vice president: Accepting her nomination as the vice-presidential candidate in August 2020, Harris nodded to her South Asian heritage \u2014 referring to her extended family as \u201cchittis,\u201d a Tamil word for aunts. It drew immediate cheers from the community. Food personality and TV host Padma Lakshmi wrote that she had \u201ctears in her eyes\u201d during that moment in Harris\u2019s address. \u201cMy heart is so full right now,\u201d Lakshmi added.<\/span>
\nFirst vice president who is a stepmom: Harris has a blended family from her marriage to Douglas Emhoff, and is known as \u201cMomala\u201d to two stepchildren, Ella and Cole. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen is that regardless of political affiliation, stepmoms are thrilled that a woman who is a stepmom and has her family front in her journey got elected to this position,\u201d Beth McDonough, a certified stepparent coach who runs a website focused on stepmom inclusivity, told \u201cGood Morning America\u201d in 2021.<\/span>
\nFirst vice president to have a second gentleman: Harris\u2019s election as vice president propelled her husband, Emhoff, to history as well \u2014 as America\u2019s first second gentleman and male vice-presidential spouse. Emhoff, who is now 59, set aside his high-profile career as an entertainment lawyer after Harris assumed office and has spoken candidly about the difficulties of leaving a profession he loved to support her political career. Now, he has the chance to become the first first gentleman of the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n