Usha Chilukuri Vance and Kamala Devi Harris: Pioneering women of Indian descent
Commentary by Nick Gier | FāVS News
At 5.2 million, Indian Americans are the nation’s second largest ethnic minority. They also are the most educated with 33% achieving college degrees and another 40% adding postgraduate diplomas. With these credentials they have excelled in all the professions, and they have attained, incredibly enough, a median household income of $152,000.
I’ve spent nearly two years on research trips to India, and I have experienced first-hand the Indians’ dedication to education. In 1999, on my first day on the campus of Punjab University, I was amazed at the number of women students. Many of them were driving around on their scooters with their sari scarves and beautiful black hair flowing in the wind.
Indian dedication to education
Today nearly half of India’s college and university students are bright ambitious young women. The largest increase has come from the Scheduled Castes, which includes Dalits, previously known as “untouchables.” Since 2015 there has been a 51% increase of female Dalits attending Indian universities and colleges.
One day on my way to the Punjab University library I witnessed a student protest in progress. I asked a bystander what the issue was, and I was astounded to learn that they were high caste students expressing their displeasure about favoritism towards Dalits. State sponsored quotas have led not only to greater student enrollment but also jobs in public employment.
On my first sabbatical to India in 1992, I lived in an apartment in Bangalore that came with a maid. Her name was Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth) and she was a Dalit. Her husband was disabled and she was the sole wage earner for him and the three daughters.
Laksmi brought her daughters to work in the morning so that they could prepare for the afternoon shift at their local school. I’ve never seen young people study so hard. My high caste Hindu neighbors criticized me for doubling Lakshmi’s wages.
One of my colleagues in the Gandhian Studies Department invited me for dinner one evening. Before the meal was ready, the two sons came out to show off what they had learned in school. One recited the American states and capitals in what seemed like one breath. Is it any wonder that it is the Indian American children who are always top winners in the National Spelling Bee?
Shymala Gopalan: Harris’ mother
Shymala Gopalan, Kamala Harris’s mother, was an illustrious example of this dedication to education. She graduated from Delhi University in 1957 at the young age of 18. The next year she started graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where she obtained a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology in 1964. She went on to become a breast cancer expert and worked in labs at major universities across the country until her death in 2009.
Harris’ father, Donald J. Harris, was a Black man from Jamaica who rose to become a full professor of economics at Stanford University. The couple met in Oakland at an Afro-American Association meeting in 1962, and they were married the next year.
Kamala Harris’ Hindu and Baptist influence
Shyamala Gopalan took her daughters to the local Hindu temple, where she sang traditional Hindu songs. Gopalan took her husband’s surname but imprinted her Indian heritage in her daughters’ names: Kamala means “lotus” and Devi means “goddess.” The name of her second daughter Maya means the power of the Hindu Goddess.
The girls’ primary religious experiences, however, were in an African American church in Oakland where Kamala and her sister Maya sang in the children’s choir. Most influential, however, was the Rainbow Sign, an African American cultural center in Berkeley, named after the rainbow that appeared to Noah.
Gopalan and her girls were regulars at the Rainbow Sign, where they met Black celebrities such as Shirley Chisholm, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou. It was also the place where, in 1971, Black Women Organized for Political Action came into being.
Memo to Donald Trump: Kamala Harris is half-Black. Her mother knew that her daughters would be perceived as Black, and she was determined to raise them accordingly.
Kamala Harris‘ exemplary legal career
Following in her mother’s academic footsteps, Kamala Harris graduated from Howard University (74% Black) in 1986, and then she obtained her law degree at Hastings School of Law in 1989.
For the next 25 years Harris was a successful prosecutor in the state of California. She was then elected as the state’s first woman, the first Black, and the first Indian American to hold the office of attorney general. Before being picked as Biden’s vice-president Harris served four years as California’s junior U.S. senator.
Usha Vance’s academic family
At 96, Usha Vance’s great aunt Shanthamma Chilukuri is the oldest active professor in India. She told a reporter that “most of our family is academically strong and education has been a top priority.” In addition to teaching physics she has authored a book on the Bhagavad-gita, one of the holiest of Hindu scriptures.
Usha Vance’s father Krish Chilukuri, who is described as starting in the U.S. with nothing, is now an aerospace engineer and a lecturer at San Diego State University. Her mother is a molecular biologist and a provost at the University of California San Diego. In 2017, Lakshmi Chilukuri, together with 2,300 other California faculty, signed an open letter to then President Trump cautioning him not to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
Usha Vance’s parents remain registered Democrats as does a large majority of Americans of Indian descent. A poll just before the 2020 election showed that 77% intended to vote for Joe Biden while only 22% would select Donald Trump.
Usha Vance “Appalled by Trump”
Ms. Vance was a registered Democrat all her life until 2014, when she indicated no affiliation in a Washington, D.C., election. She did become a Republican when she voted in the primary for her husband’s senate campaign.
Usha Vance’s early friends describe her as a “leftist.” One friend reported “she was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.” (A spokesperson for J. D. Vance did not contradict this report.) I believe it is significant that Ms. Vance did not mention the name “Trump” in her introduction of her husband at the GOP convention.
A Republican strategist Jai Chabria stated: “Usha’s views of the former president have changed, mirroring the evolution of her husband. Usha has had a similar shift in views and fully supports Donald Trump and her husband.”
Usha Vance’s superb legal career
Usha Vance has had a distinguished academic and legal career. After graduating from Yale and an academic sojourn at Cambridge University, she went on to obtain her law degree at Yale. She clerked for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts and then worked at several prestigious law firms.
Usha Vance: A devout Hindu
When Usha Chilukuri met J. D. Vance at Yale, he was an atheist, and he credits his wife with a return to Christianity. While J.D. Vance was baptized Catholic in 2018, his wife remains a devout Hindu and vegetarian. In addition to a Christian wedding the couple celebrated in 2014, they also participated in a Hindu ceremony. J. D. Vance prides himself in making vegetarian food for his mother-in-law.
J. D. Vance boasts that “my own wife is a working mother.” But, as soon as Trump selected her husband as his vice-president, she resigned her position at a progressive San Francisco law firm, presumably to help with the Trump/Vance campaign.
I suspect that many Trump supporters are saying to themselves what white supremacist Nick Fuentes said out loud: “What kind of values does a man have to marry somebody that is far outside his race, who isn’t even a Christian?” Readers may recall that Fuentes was a Thanksgiving dinner guest at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
Voters turning back to Democrats
Harris is now coming into her own, and she has already returned many young people to the Democrat fold. Blacks, especially thousands of Black women, are rallying to support Harris. She had great Hispanic support in California and already there are signs that more of those voters are returning to the Democrats.
A recent poll showed that Biden had lost 8 percentage points in the South Asian community. However Harris will certainly bring back those voters as well. Recently, over 4,000 Indian American women mobilized on a Zoom call in support of Harris. T-shirts with the slogan “Kamala Ke Saath,” meaning “together with Kamala” in Hindi, are selling out on the web.
Harris: Chief prosecutor against Trump
Harris is now styling herself as chief prosecutor against convicted felon Donald Trump. In her first campaign speech she reminded her audience that, as California’s chief prosecutor, she “took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
That was excellent and very compelling reading! Thank you Nick!