United States Vice President Kamala Harris has flagged that the political representation of the Bharatiya-Americans in the United States is not reflective of their growing population.
Harris requested more and more people from the community to run for elected offices. Harris is the first Vice President of the United States to be of Bharatiya-origin. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, had arrived in the US at the age of 19. Harris is also the first woman and the first Black Vice President of the US.
Speaking at an event by Bharatiya American Impact, a Democratic Party’s think tank that supports Bharatiya-Americans politically, Harris noted that the community’s political representation has increased over the years, but it is still not enough.
‘Over the years, we’ve had so much more participation by Bharatiya Americans in the electoral process running for office, but the numbers are still not reflective of the size of the growing population’, said Harris.
Harris also recalled her mother Shyamala, who died in 2009, marching for Civil Rights in Berkeley. She also recalled her grandfather, a civil servant in Bharat, and said that she would visit Bharat every two years as a child and her grandfather would take her on morning walks.
Harris said, ‘I remember as a young girl hearing them discuss the importance of standing for what is right and fairness’. As of 2024, there are five sitting US Congress members of Bharatiya-origin: Ami Bera, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, and Shri Thanedar.
The think tank IA Impact had, however, hoped to have 10 Bharatiya-American lawmakers by now. Speaking about growing as an ethnic minority in the United States, Harris told the audience that they were not alone. She said that she was the empirical evidence of the promise that’s the United States of America.
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