About 1,400 miles from Washington, D.C., sits the island nation of Jamaica. The Caribbean country is home to about 2.8 million people and a diaspora that spans the globe.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is part of that diaspora. The Jamaica-born economist now lives in the same city as his daughter, the capital of the United States, but despite their closeness in proximity, answers on who Donald Harris is, and his influence on who his daughter is today, may best be found via the Harris family members who still live on the island.
Donald Harris was born in Jamaica in 1938. He migrated to the U.S., became a citizen, married biologist Shyamala Gopalan, fathered two daughters, and rose to the pinnacle of academia as a professor at Stanford University.
The vice president and Donald Harris have not shared details about the extent of their current relationship. The impact of the vice president’s parents’ divorce when she was a child, perhaps, continues to linger over the decades.
Vice President Harris frequently speaks about her mother, who passed away in 2009, but her public remarks about her father are rare.
So who is Donald Harris the man who taught Kamala Harris to be fearless?
Scripps News' Ava-joye Burnett, who was born in Jamaica, traveled back to the country to find out more about Donald Harris and how his Jamaican roots have shaped his daughter, who is now running for president.
Donald Harris' hometown of Brown's Town is a market community a few miles inland from the popular tourist spots on Jamaica’s north coast.
The Harris name goes back generations in the small market town. They are so influential that the town was named after one side of their family and their prominence continues to this day.
Two of Donald Harris' cousins, Sherman and Mark Harris, run businesses in town but even before the rise of their family name in American politics, they kept a low profile.
Sherman Harris spoke with Scripps News and shed light on who Donald Harris is and what it was like when Kamala Harris visited Jamaica with her father as a child.
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“This is the playground of Kamala,” Sherman Harris said from his home that overlooks the property that’s been in the family for generations. “She would actually play on these grounds with her father, and she loved it. She played with the animals, the cows, the goats and so on, and run up and down on the property.”
Donald Harris’ world views were shaped in Brown’s Town where he grew up watching his grandmother run a business.
A combination of his academic brilliance and his family’s influence took him from Jamaica to the halls of two of the most elite institutions in the United States. Donald Harris earned a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and eventually became an economics professor at Stanford University.
Harris wrote about “frequent visits to Jamaica” with his young daughters. In some instances, the elder Harris brought the girls into the bustling market to expose them to the environment.
Mark Harris said Donald Harris often focused on education and immersing his daughters in the Jamaican culture.
“Donald believes in really showing the true way of life and where he’s coming from,” said Mark Harris.
When asked what impact Kamala Harris’ summers in Jamaica had on who she’s become, Mark Harris said, “It exposed her to the Jamaican cultural roots, so you know, that sort of enhances the kind of person you become.”
In the 1970s, Donald and Shyamala Harris started having marital problems. Vice President Harris has spoken about being raised mostly by her mother but despite her limited mentions of her father and her Jamaican roots, people who know the vice president say her father and his Jamaican roots have helped to shape the person she has become.
In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris reminisced about her childhood and her father’s encouragement to be fearless, a lesson the vice president recalls as she runs for president.
Kamala Harris’ Jamaican relatives also addressed Donald Trump’s comments that Harris “happened to turn Black”.
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Sherman Harris said Trump’s remarks were “unintelligent."
“Somebody can't turn Black or somebody can't turn white, so I find it a dumb speech, you know," he said. "I think he's short for words."
“It's just a political point that he's trying to make to try to see if he could gain back some Black votes ... but it's nonsense,” Mark Harris said.
Jamaica was once a Spanish, then British colony. It gained independence in 1962, but its colonial past sets the stage for an island that’s an ethnic melting pot.
Though the country is more than 90 percent Black, people of European, Middle Eastern, Chinese and Indian descent call Jamaica home — and have collectively shaped the culture in Jamaica for generations.
Professor Sonjah Stanley Niaah, a senior lecturer of cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona, said some Jamaicans were offended by Trump’s comments that Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black."
“At the heart of that is a certain kind of white privilege that ought to be named for what it is,” Niaah said. “I can understand why it would be seen as egregious, completely problematic for someone to determine that another can't claim who they want to be or how they want to be seen in the world. And I think Jamaicans would get upset because it is out of order for anyone to determine that you can’t say who you are in the world.”
Scripps News Reports, Kamala Harris’ Jamaican Roots airs Saturday at 8 p.m.
For more on Donald Harris, watch the video below of one of his former students, Robert Blecker, an economics professor at American University.
