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(130,156 posts)California. She is the daughter of a Tamil Indian mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris (19382009), a breast cancer researcher who emigrated from Chennai, India, in 1960,[9][10] and an African American father of Jamaican descent, Donald Harris, a Stanford University economics professor.[15] Her name, Kamalā, is feminization of the Sanskrit word Kamal (Lotus Flower / Nelumbo nucifera) that means "She of the Lotus", another name of Laxmi, the Hindu Goddess of prosperity whose seat is a lotus flower. She was extremely close with her maternal grandfather, Rajam Gopalan, an Indian diplomat,[10] and as a child she would frequently visit her family in Besant Nagar.[16] She has one younger sister, Maya, a lawyer and public policy advocate, who married Tony West, a former Associate Attorney General of the United States.[17]
The family moved to Berkeley, California, where both of Kamala's parents attended graduate school.[18] They also introduced their daughter to civil rights protests, which were common during that time in Berkeley.[18] Kamala's parents divorced when she was 7.[18] Shyamala raised her daughters in Berkeley, where the family lived in a predominantly African-American neighborhood and where the girls sang in a Baptist choir,[14] and they were also raised with Hindu beliefs. Her mother eventually moved the family to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where Shyamala took a position doing research at the Jewish General Hospital and teaching at McGill University.[19][20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris