A Guide to Vice President Kamala Harris’ Family
Kamala Harris is eyeing to make history once again.
In 2021, she was sworn in as Vice President of the United States—becoming the first woman, Black American and South Asian American to hold the position.
Now, Harris is aiming to become the first female president in U.S. history.
She entered the presidential race after President Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he was no longer seeking reelection—with him expressing his “full support and endorsement” of Harris to be the nominee for the Democratic party, going up against former President Donald Trump as the Republican party’s candidate.
Even before becoming the 49th VP, Harris had made history several times throughout her career. She was elected District Attorney of San Francisco in 2004 and became the first woman, Black woman and South Asian American woman to take the office. Six years later, Harris became the first woman, Black American and South Asian American to serve as California Attorney General. And in 2017, the former prosecutor became the second Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
But to her family, Harris has other titles: daughter to Donald J. Harris and the late Shyamala Gopalan, sister to Maya Harris, aunt to Meena Harris, wife to Doug Emhoff and “Momala” to Cole Emhoff and Ella Emhoff.
“It is one of my favorite titles being Momala,” she told People in 2023. “It’s actually much more of a common experience than I think we actually talk about, which is co-parenting. We don’t really use the term stepparent but participating in raising a child that you love because that child is your own in every way that is important. So it’s a name the kids gave me, and I wear it proudly.”
To learn more about Harris’ family, keep reading.
Shyamala Gopalan was born in southern India in 1938 and Donald J. Harris was born in Jamaica that same year.
According to The New York Times, they met in 1962 while earning their Ph.D.s at the University of California, Berkeley and as members of the study group the Afro American Association. They wed the following year and welcomed daughters Kamala Harris in 1964 and Maya Harris in 1967.
“They fell in love in that most American way,” Harris said in her 2020 Democratic National Convention speech, “while marching together for justice in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”
However, her parents later split.
"I knew they loved each other very much, but it seemed they’d become like oil and water," Harris wrote in her book The Truths We Hold. "By the time I was five years old, the bond between them had given way under the weight of incompatibility."
While Harris wrote her father “remained a part of our lives" after the divorce, she noted “it was really my mother who took charge of our upbringing.”
After working as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Donald joined Stanford and is a professor of economics, emeritus, per his school bio.
Shyamala, who died in 2009 at age 70, was a breast cancer researcher. Breast Cancer Action noted her "work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene transformed the medical establishment’s understanding of the hormone-responsiveness of breast tissue."
Born in Brooklyn in 1964 and raised in Matawan, New Jersey, Doug Emhoff moved to Los Angeles with his family as a teen. He received his B.A. in communications from California State University, Northridge in 1987 and graduated with a J.D. from University of Southern California Gould School of Law three years later.
As Emhoff previously told CBS Sunday Morning, he met Harris in 2013 after they were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend. The entertainment litigator had texted the former California Attorney General at a Lakers game after some encouragement from his pal.
"We sat there in the stands and came up with this text that’s like, 'Hey, it’s Doug. Awkward. I’m texting you,'" he recalled to the outlet. "She said something like, 'Yay Lakers! Go Lakers!' Biggest Warriors fan out there."
While Emhoff feared he'd never hear from Harris again after he left a self-described "ridiculous" voicemail, she told CBS she thought the message was "just adorable" (though, she admitted she Googled him before their date).
They exchanged vows in a Santa Barbara, Calif. courthouse three years before Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2017.
In addition to being the nation's first-ever second gentleman, Emhoff is the first Jewish spouse of an American president or vice president. He also taught law courses at Georgetown University and is dad to kids Cole and Ella Emhoff, whom he shares with ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff.
Cole Emhoff, born in 1994, will never forget when he was first introduced to Harris.
“I met her and we had this amazing dinner,” Emhoff's eldest, who was a senior in high school at the time of their meeting, recalled to Glamour in 2020. “And I realized like, Oh, my God, Doug has met someone who is completely unique and totally special. I think for all of us, it was love at first sight.”
Cole graduated from Colorado College in 2017. According to People, citing his now-private LinkedIn profile, he has worked for Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B and is married to Greenley Littlejohn, with Harris officiating their wedding in 2023.
Ella Emhoff, born in 1999 and named after Ella Fitzgerald, has similar memories of her first meeting with Harris.
“It felt like we had known each other forever,” the artist, who was just entering high school at the time, added to Glamour. “And I think what was important was getting to know her as a person first—a person before a politician.”
Years after that introduction, Ella introduced Harris at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, where she accepted the vice-presidential nomination.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ella—who previously confirmed a relationship with GQ editor Samuel Hine—graduated from New York's Parson’s School of Design in 2021 with a degree in Fine and Studio Arts. She interned at A.L.C. and worked as a fabricator at The Haas Brothers.
In addition to being a multidisciplinary artist—founding her company Soft Hands—she’s a model with IMG Models who has appeared in both Paris and New York Fashion Week.
Among those closest to Harris is her younger sister, Maya Harris.
"We leaned on each other,” the 49th Vice President told The Washington Post in 2019. “We forged a bond that is unbreakable. When I think about it, all of the joyous moments in our lives, all of the challenging moments, all of the moments of transition, we have always been together."
As her bio notes, Maya served as a campaign chairperson during Harris' 2020 presidential run and later championed her run for VP alongside President Joe Biden. Previously, she worked as a senior policy advisor to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign.
Born in 1967, Maya graduated from University of California, Berkeley and then received her law degree from Stanford Law School. Her résumé includes leadership positions at the Ford Foundation and ACLU of Northern California, a senior fellow role at the Center for American Progress, a visiting scholar apppointment at Harvard Law School and author contribution to The Covenant with Black America.
Maya is married to Tony West, former Associate Attorney General and current Chief Legal Officer at Uber, and is mom to daughter Meena Harris.
Born in 1984, Meena Harris is Harris' niece.
She attended Stanford University for undergrad and then studied at Harvard Law School. In addition to working as an attorney, she’s held positions at Facebook, Slack and Uber.
Later, Meena founded Phenomenal, a consumer and media company that’s produced musicals like Suffs, & Juliet and A Strange Loop and acquired satirical women’s magazine Reductress. She is also a best-selling children's book author of titles including Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, Ambitious Girl and The Truth About Mrs. Claus.
In addition, Meena is mom to daughters Amara and Leela, whom she shares with Nik Ajagu.
