by liberal japonicus
Folks who have been here awhile might now that I've written a few times about my parents, and how people are formed by their parents is something that I take a great interest in. Here's probably the post that is closest to this (with some links to other things I wrote in the post). So I find this deep dive article about Kamala's mom. Just a few pull grafs.
She arrived in the United States at the very vanguard of a profound shift — a shift, ongoing and unabated, that stokes many of the most contentious debates within this bitter political time. She is, yes, an avatar of a widely relatable struggle to make ends meet, but she also was much more than some minimal symbol. By making the choices she made, by raising her daughters the ways she did, she changed the country. It might sound like a stretch. She was, admittedly, just one woman. If, though, Kamala Harris is a sort of quintessential 21st-century American — multiracial, multiethnic, the next-generation progeny of a pioneer of an immigrant — it’s also not totally wrong. Shyamala Gopalan helped shape the mindset and makeup of modern America.
and
And yet last week in a speech her campaign billed as an immigration speech, in Douglas, Arizona, southeast of Tucson and down by the border with Mexico, she said “there are consequential issues at stake in this election, and one is the security of our border.” She said there are “rules.” She said as attorney general of California she “prosecuted transnational criminal organizations.” She said she “brought a bipartisan group of American attorneys general and led that group to travel to Mexico City to meet with Mexican attorneys general to address this issue.” She said immigrants “who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from reentering for five years.” She also said we “need clear, legal pathways for people seeking to coming into our country.” She said we are “a nation of immigrants.” And the woman about whom some not small portion of the population say they still need to know more said “the United States has been enriched by generations of people who have come from every corner of the world to contribute to our country and to become part of the American story.”
She did not mention her mother.
Some might take this as a fundamental urge to deceive. If she doesn't mention her mother, the question might go, was she really that important? Yet for me, I can understand that this is what she has to do. And I also understand why this is why I would never be a politician. As the article notes earlier
But short of the color of her skin and the country from which she came, I said the other day on the phone with Madrid, Shyamala Gopalan is precisely what those even way to the right on the spectrum of the most stringent immigration debate point to as the model. She was one of a small number of people coming in — low and slow. She was high-achieving. She started a family. She endeavored to assimilate. She contributed to this country — didn’t just “take” from it. “She,” I said to Madrid, “is what they say they want.”
“That’s easy to say when you’re 90-percent white. When you’re not, do we still say that? Well, no — half of us are saying, ‘Fuck no.’ It’s the primary political glue that’s holding one of our political parties together,” he said.
“My mother … came and changed America?” said Madrid. “That ain’t gonna play in Erie County.” (links from the article)
What precisely will play in Erie county is the question...
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