2024-08-23 15:30:02
As Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic presidential nomination, a bevy of her family members are expected to cheer her on from the stands: her husband, Doug Emhoff, stepchildren and her sister, Maya Harris, to name a few.
But it’s unclear whether we’ll see the nominee’s father, Donald J. Harris, in Chicago on Thursday. He is Kamala’s only living parent, as her mother, Shyamala Gopalan died in 2009.
Here’s what to know about the vice president’s father and his involvement (or lack thereof) in her political career.
Who is Donald J. Harris?
Donald Harris is an economist and retired Stanford University professor. Born in Jamaica, he immigrated to the United States to complete a doctorate degree at the University of California in Berkeley. There, he also met Shyamala, and the couple had two children, Kamala and Maya, before divorcing.
After his divorce, Shyamala won primary custody of their children, though Donald continued to see Kamala and Maya during the weekends and summer, according to the vice president’s 2019 memoir.
“Had they been a little older, a little more emotionally mature, maybe the marriage could have survived. But they were so young,” Kamala wrote in “The Truths We Hold.”
Donald Harris, whose economic philosophies are often grounded in Marxist theory, has also served as a frequent economic advisor to his home country of Jamaica, according to The Washington Post.
Is Donald J. Harris at the DNC? Is he involved in Kamala’s campaign?
Donald Harris has been absent from the DNC all week, so it’s unlikely we’ll see him make an appearance Thursday.
In fact, the economist has chosen to stay largely absent from his daughter’s political life. He also did not make any public remarks or appearances during her 2020 vice presidential campaign.
It appears the last time Donald Harris weighed in on the vice president’s political career was in 2019, when she was in the midst of her first presidential bid.
His comment came after Harris responded to a radio interview question about whether she had smoked marijuana earlier in her life by saying, “Half my family’s from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?”
Donald then responded in a statement to Jamaica Global Online, a news site in his home country, according to POLITICO.
“My dear departed grandmothers… as well as my deceased parents, must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics,” Donald wrote.
“Speaking for myself and my immediate Jamaican family, we wish to categorically dissociate ourselves from this travesty,” he added.
Kamala’s campaign did not issue any comment in response.
What is Donald J. Harris’s connection to Wisconsin?
Though he ended his university career at Stanford, Donald also taught for several years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The family lived in Madison from the time Kamala was three to five years old. Donald was an associate professor of economics at UW-Madison, while Shyamala worked as a breast cancer researcher in the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research.
In her memoir, Harris cited the family’s move to Madison as the reason for her parents’ separation.
Hope Karnopp contributed to this story.
