{"id":10910,"date":"2020-10-08T05:08:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10910"},"modified":"2020-10-08T05:08:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T12:08:23","slug":"chicagoan-from-kamala-harris-familys-hometown-in-india-among-many-women-of-color-hosting-debate-watch-parties-chicago-sun-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10910","title":{"rendered":"“Chicagoan from Kamala Harris family\u2019s hometown in India among many women of color hosting debate watch parties”, Chicago Sun-Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maudlyne Ihejirika, The Chicago Chronicles,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>

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Vice presidential debate watch parties aplenty were planned by women of color across Chicago Wednesday, a voter base heavily supporting Kamala Harris \u2014 first Black American woman and first South Asian American to grace a major party ticket. Bernadette Chopra is particularly passionate about the Democratic nominee, as she hails from the same hometown in India as Harris\u2019 family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, then running for the U.S. Senate in California, greets Bernadette Chopra at a June 2015 fundraiser in Chicago. Chopra, of Streeterville, is like many women of color, passionate about the candidacy of Harris, who is the first Black American woman and first South Asian American to grace a major party ticket. Chopra is even moreso, as she and Harris\u2019 family hail from the same little town in India.\u00a0Provided<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The inbox filled pretty quickly throughout the day, with invites to vice presidential debate watch parties being planned across Chicago on Wednesday night, hosted by women of color.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a voter base heavily supporting U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, the first Black American woman and first South Asian American ever to grace a major party ticket in our presidential elections.<\/p>\n

A large segment of Black women, of course, have claimed the Democratic vice presidential nominee as their own. But her mixed-race heritage offers binate benefit.<\/p>\n

Harris enjoys strong support from a large segment of the South Asian community \u2014 particularly women, who claim similar ownership in her ascent to the national stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe checks a lot of boxes,\u201d said Bernadette Chopra, 60, of Streeterville, who hails from the same neighborhood in the same town in India where Harris\u2019 late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, grew up. It\u2019s where Harris herself spent a lot of time while growing up, returning with her mother and younger sister to visit family there every couple of years.<\/p>\n

Harris\u2019 mother, a renowned biologist who died of colon cancer in 2009, was born in the Besant Nagar area of Chennai, a city on the southeastern coast of India. She immigrated to the United States in the late 50s to attend a doctoral program at the University of California at Berkeley, where she met her husband, Donald Harris, who had emigrated from Jamaica.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy home is about 10 miles from the place that Kamala\u2019s grandfather lived, where her mother grew up, so all the neighborhoods she has been talking about on the campaign trail are around my home,\u201d said Chopra, who planned to watch the 8 p.m. debate at home, with husband Vivek Chopra, couchside.<\/p>\n

The Chopras son, Sid, and his wife, in Vernon Hills, and their daughter, Sonu Merfeld, and her husband, in Madison, Wisconsin, were going to be a group text away, as the family prepared to share commentary with one another, marking the highs and lows of the debate between Harris and Vice President Mike Pence.<\/p>\n

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Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris arrives on stage for the vice presidential debate in Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah.<\/span><\/figcaption>Getty<\/cite><\/span><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cKamala was my first choice for the presidential ticket. From the first time I met her five years ago, I saw in Kamala a woman who was fearless, powerful,\u201d said Bernadette Chopra, a retired nonprofit executive who is currently active on the boards of several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so exciting when she was announced as vice presidential nominee. It\u2019s inspiring to hear her describe our little town as a place that shaped her public service aspirations, through her experiences there with her grandfather,\u201d Chopra said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see a woman who identifies as Black but also has a strong lineage in her blood from an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, a heartbeat away from the presidency, is historic. On so many levels, she represents everything about the pivotal moment we find ourselves in on race relations in this country right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Harris, who was raised by her mother after her parents divorced when she was 7, frequently talks of receiving her political bent from her grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, a civil servant in India, with whom she would walk and talk on the beach in Besant Nagar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she speaks of our hometown, and her grandfather\u2019s involvement in the freedom struggles in the \u201960s there, it\u2019s all so relatable for me. It takes me back to India,\u201d said Chopra.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always tell people, \u2018Do not underestimate women from the South of India, because we come from a certain strain. I, too, grew up with a mother who was so politically charged, it seeped into me as well. So when Kamala speaks about getting her civil rights commitment instilled in her by her mother, it\u2019s like she\u2019s talking about my own mother,\u201d Chopra said.<\/p>\n

Harris also was the first South Asian American to serve in the U.S. Senate when elected in 2016. She was the second African American woman \u2014 Chicago\u2019s Carol Moseley Braun was the first. Harris previously served as California\u2019s attorney general \u2014 the first African-American and first woman to serve in that position when elected in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be glued to the television. I\u2019m hoping Sen. Harris will ask the vice president some of these questions all Americans have right now about the current state of affairs regarding that COVID-19 \u2018superspreader\u2019 Supreme Court nomination event at the White House we\u2019ve all been reading about the last week,\u201d said Chopra, who first met Harris at a 2015 fundraiser in Chicago, when Harris was running for the senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see her question the vice president about the White House coronavirus response, because he was heading the COVID-19 task force. He needs to answer the nation on that,\u201d Chopra said. \u201cI have a lot of hope and faith in Sen. Harris and believe this is going to be her moment. Remember, she\u2019s a prosecutor at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago Sun-Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maudlyne Ihejirika, The Chicago Chronicles,\u00a0Oct 7, 2020 Vice presidential debate watch parties aplenty were planned by women of color across Chicago Wednesday, a voter base heavily supporting Kamala Harris \u2014 first Black American woman and first South Asian American to grace a major party ticket. Bernadette Chopra is particularly passionate about the Democratic nominee, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10911,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10910\/revisions\/10911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}