Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is making its latest push to Asian American voters, releasing a personal ad about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan.
The 60-second ad, titled “My Mother,” highlights Harris’ speaking about her mom at the Democratic National Convention last month, alongside pictures and videos of Gopalan, who died in 2009.
“My mother was a brilliant 5-foot-tall brown woman with an accent,” Harris said at the convention. “She taught us to never complain about injustice but to do something about it.”
She says her mother’s words inspired her to become a lawyer and then to seek public office. Gopalan, who was a prominent breast cancer researcher, emigrated from India when she was 19 to attend the University of California, Berkeley.
Born and raised in the South Indian city of Chennai, Gopalan came from a family of civil servants. Her father was a proponent of India’s freedom fight against the British. At Berkeley, Gopalan became involved in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, which is how she met Harris’ father, Donald Harris.
“As the eldest child, I saw how the world would sometimes treat her. But my mother never lost her cool,” Harris said in her DNC speech.
The ad showcases images of other Asian individuals and families at work, playing cards, sitting on their porch and shopping at ethnic grocery stores.
“On behalf of my mother, on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with — people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another — and everyone whose story can only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America,” the ad concludes.
