Kamala Harris is true to her identities: South Asians for Harris chief Harini Krishnan

You supported Harris in her campaign for the 2020 cycle. She suspended her campaign. But you stayed involved. Take us through that..

I have always been a supporter of Kamala Devi Harris. People forget the Devi part. It is very important and she thinks it’s very important…I was heartbroken when she suspended her campaign in December 2019, but she told me to stay engaged. There is a core group of about 25 people who have been with her for a long time, and I am proud to be a part of that. And that includes her schoolmate, her classmate from Howard, her sorority mate, and some of her earliest supporters when she lived in San Francisco and Oakland. And there are two South Asians in that group. I am one of them. And then the other is Dita Bhargava who ran for office in Connecticut. So we continue to stay engaged and support her.

I then started NorCal Joyful Warriors for Joe (Biden) and Kamala, hence the term joyful warrior. Another women leader Neha Dewan (who led South Asian political groups) contacted me. I became the National Grassroots Organising Chair for South Asians for Biden. It was Covid. There was no door knocking. So we pivoted to virtual phone banks. I helped set up phone banks in every battleground state. We made 350,000 calls. In Wisconsin, Biden won by 20,000 and some votes. We made calls to 25,000 Indian Americans in Wisconsin and told them what was at stake in this election. Do you want a president who demonises you or a president who’s going to be more inclusive? He won because we were the margin of victory in Wisconsin, in Georgia where Gwinnett County and Fulton County are two of the most minority-majority districts in the country in a red state. We helped turn out South Asian American votes in those counties.

I continued to be part of this group of 25. So every couple of months, we traveled to the office of the vice president. We would meet Harris for round tables and discussions. We would have Zoom sessions with her staff once a month and share feedback both ways in terms of policies, but also in terms of what should we amplify.

When this cycle came around, we launched South Asians for Biden in April. And I will be honest with you, a lot of people were disenchanted because of all the narratives in the media. It made me upset because he was one of the most transformative presidents of our times and remember, he appointed Harris. He was willing to put himself on the line by choosing a black and South Asian woman.

After the Biden-Trump debate and before he announced leaving the race, did you know it was coming? What did Harris say?

I met her a week before the announcement. Her instructions to me were face-to-face. I held her hand. She said I want you to keep working until and unless you hear otherwise.

For Biden?

Yes. So we knew our job was to advocate for Biden-Harris until and unless we heard otherwise, and when we heard, we pivoted.

What happened on July 21 when you heard he was leaving and endorsing her?

I cried. I am a proud member of the K-Hive. The K-Hive is this organic network of people on social media who pushed back against those attacking her in 2019. It’s made up of black, brown, and white women mostly. We all got together on Zoom that night. We all cried our hearts out. There were 160 K-Hive leaders on a Zoom call saying, we have waited five and a half years for this.

So overnight we pivoted. We switched to South Asians for Harris. We had thousands of volunteers. A couple of women came to us and said, can we do a South Asian women for Harris Zoom? We helped build and facilitate that. We raised nearly $300,000 and 10,000 people joined that Zoom call and thousands of people signed up to volunteer. We now have 24 state chapters in the last three weeks. We have 75 National core team members, including advisors from every battleground state on our national core team. We have a rapid response team that is putting out graphics on Project 2025 and how it impacts South Asian communities. We will canvas after Labour Day in battleground states. We have buses going and knocking on doors. We are ready, and we are going to be doing this for the next 75 days.

Tell us about Harris and what she is like…

She’s one of the most warmest, thoughtful, and compassionate people I have met. She doesn’t care whether you are an elected leader, organiser, staff member, president, or governor. She treats you the same. She looks you in your eyes. She will remember your family. She knows what they’re doing, and she’ll ask about them. She does the same to every single person. This is somebody who cares. She is also fierce and fearless. She has had to break that highest glass ceiling in every job she has been in — as district attorney, attorney general, senator, and VP.

She is also very thoughtful and inclusive. Whatever the issue, she brings everybody who is part of that conversation and narrative to the table. And she says, okay, let me listen. And then she comes to a decision. She did that when it was dealing with maternal care. She did that when it was dealing with early childhood learning. She did that for gun violence. She did that with technology. She brought the tech CEOs, including a lot of the Indian CEOs, and said, listen, AI is here, but let’s talk about how we promote the innovation of AI and technology but in an accountable way.

What does she think about her identity?

There are a lot of people who question her identity. Is she Indian enough? Is she black enough? And I will say this, imagine being a biracial child of a single mom growing up in Oakland. And when you are a biracial child, there are people from both communities who are going to ostracise you, and are not going to accept you with open arms. But when she talks about her mother, her grandfather, about the members of her family, those values are in her. Her Tata (grandfather) taught her about justice and that’s why she pursued a path of social justice.

Kamala Harris is Indian. She is Black. She has a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is a woman. She unites us in a way that our country needs at this time because we’re so polarised. But she also represents the best of us, especially immigrants who are questioned under Trump and whether we belong here. She sees us in a way that I don’t think Trump ever will.

The greatest part of her story is that her parents met in the Civil Rights movement. Think about her going as a toddler in a stroller to the civil rights marches. That was the genesis of who Kamala Harris is. Not enough of the Indian American community recognises that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Civil Rights movement, and to the members of the black community, for opening the door for us to be here. We are here because we have built coalitions, and we need to remember that we don’t operate in silos.

For the past three and a half years, the media had a fairly negative narrative about her. What did you think of it? And what changed suddenly? What has she been doing that everyone missed?

In 2019, there were so many presidential candidates. When she would be questioned by the media and she would make a statement, they would say, she’s not assertive enough on this policy. When she thought that she made a mistake, she would acknowledge it and say I thought about it and this is how I feel. Then they would say, oh, look, she’s fluctuating. When a white male candidate did the same thing, they would applaud him for being able to say I have learned from this mistake. They would portray him in a favourable light, but they didn’t give her that grace.

So you think it was racism and misogyny?

Why do you think the K-Hive started? To push back against this narrative. We saw this where she would make a policy and no media would cover it. A white male candidate would have the identical policy, and they would say, look at the vision. This is exactly what they did to Hillary, talking about the way she laughed, and what she wore. San Francisco is one of the most political spaces in this world. For Harris to become DA, AG, and Senator, it was not easy. You have to be brilliant. You have to be competent. You have to be experienced.

With reference to what she’s been doing over the last three and a half years. That’s the other part that frustrated us. She has been crisscrossing this country, travelling to so many states for reproductive freedom. She did her reproductive freedom tour. How many media covered it? Zero. She has been travelling around the world. Did the media cover it? No, they didn’t.

So what changed?

Because she’s bringing in the money. She has the entire Democratic Party behind her. The youth recognise who she is. Kamala is brat, right? So now there’s all this euphoria. There’s all this energy. All of a sudden the media does a 360. They’re like, oh yeah, she was always smart. She was always competent. She was always experienced. Right. But are they willing to admit that it was their narrative? No

There has been speculation about how she shares an uncomfortable dynamic with the current political dispensation in India. How will she approach that relationship?

We do not opine on foreign policy. I am the national director of South Asians for Harris. We represent multiple countries, multiple identities, and faith groups. It is hard enough to bring everybody together because unfortunately, the first generation, whether it’s Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi, would much rather talk about the politics of the country they came from than talk about what is happening here.

So is the division within the diaspora based on Indian politics affecting your ability to mobilise South Asians or Indians in particular for Harris?

I think it’s a generational thing. The older generation is still very much watching Zee and NDTV and not as much MSNBC or CNN. They want to be in touch with their roots. They have very strong connections. So they identify with their home country and view political candidates through that lens, which makes it difficult for us. But the second generation, they don’t view it that way, they are very progressive. We deal with a different set of issues.

We have to constantly remind people, hey folks, that we have abortion bans happening around this country. Think about the abortion bans that will happen. Think about your daughter bleeding to death because, in the state that she lives in, they will put her behind bars before she is allowed to have an abortion because her pregnancy is not viable and she has to have it. Think about gun violence and that we have 10 mass shootings a day. Imagine if the NRA gets the blessing of Trump. You’ll have guns in grocery stores and places of worship. Think about how it will impact your communities. So my job is to remind folks about what is at stake here. Anti-AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) violence is on the rise. We are seeing the greatest incidents of hate crimes against Sikh Americans because there’s also a lack of knowledge about who they are. We’re seeing incidents of hate crimes against Indian Americans. So many students have been impacted. Those are the issues here.

What would you say to people in India on how they should view the Harris candidacy and how should they not view it?

I will tell them not to judge her based on whether or not they think she’s Indian enough. Kamala gets to dictate who she is… And don’t impose your politics on her because she is an American. She is an Indian-American. She is going to be true to the values that have been imparted by her Indian mother, and grandfather. But she is also going to be true to all her identities, and she’s going to uplift all the communities she represents.