5 things we learned about Kamala Harris from her memoir

Who is Kamala Harris? The simple answer is that she’s the current Vice President of the United States, and the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election. But what were the defining moments of her personal and professional life that made her the politician she is today? 

Part of the answer lies in The Truths We Hold, Harris’ 2019 memoir which details her upbringing in Oakland and Berkeley, California and meteoric rise from legal intern, to San Francisco’s district attorney, California’s attorney general, and later a US senator.

Harris writes eloquently about issues that are important to her, including affordable healthcare, fighting climate change, protecting the children of undocumented workers, the Black Lives Matter movement, advocating for victims of sexual abuse, the call for stronger labour unions, LGBTQ+ rights, and more.  

But more than just a catalogue of dazzling career achievements, The Truths We Hold is a heartfelt memoir that shines a light on Harris’ personal life: the lessons she learned from her mother, her relationship with her husband Doug (who, in one memorable anecdote, told the press he would be played by Bradley Cooper in a biopic of their life), and the close bond she has with her stepchildren, who lovingly call her “Momala”.

It’s an insightful, highly readable book, which has recently been reissued with a new cover. Below, we’ve rounded up just five of the key things we learned about Kamala Harris from reading her memoir. 

1. She comes from a long line of activists  

Harris’ parents met and fell in love while participating in the civil rights movement as students at Berkeley. They marched against the Vietnam War, protested for civil rights and voting rights, and formed a study group to read Black writers who weren’t on the college syllabus. “My parents and their friends were more than just protesters,” Harris writes in her memoir. “They were big thinkers, pushing big ideas, organizing their community.” 

Harris’ grandparents were politically active, too. Her maternal grandmother was a community organiser who helped victims of domestic abuse in India and taught local women about contraception, while her maternal grandfather was part of the movement to win India’s independence. The couple later moved to Zambia after it gained independence, helping to settle refugees. 

“From them, my mother learned that it was service to others that gave life purpose and meaning,” Harris writes. “And from my mother, [my sister] Maya and I learned the same.” 

Harris’ parents took her to marches as a child, and social justice was central to family discussions. Later, as a university student, Harris was regularly involved in protests against South Africa's apartheid.  

This background partially inspired her to work in the District Attorney’s office: “When activists came marching and banging on the doors, I wanted to be on the other side to let them in.”   

2. She knew her power to effect change, even as an intern 

Working as a summer intern at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, Harris experienced a “defining moment” in her life. Her supervisor was working on a case involving a drug bust, where numerous people had been arrested – including an innocent bystander. It was late on a Friday afternoon, most employees had gone home, and Harris knew that the innocent woman would probably have to spend the weekend in jail.  

Harris was concerned, as she knew the woman had kids and a job that potentially required weekend work: staying the weekend could have a huge impact on her life. So, Harris went to the clerk of the court and “begged” for the case to be called that day. As a result, the judge returned and allowed the woman to go home. 

“It was a defining moment in my life,” Harris writes: “It was a realization that, even with the limited authority of an intern, people who cared could do justice.” 

3. She’s not afraid to persevere, even when the stakes are high 

The year was 2011, and the mortgage crisis had wreaked havoc on America – particularly in Harris’ home state of California. She joined the 49 other attorney generals to discuss how to hold the banks accountable for immoral practices such as robo-signing (signing foreclosure documents en masse without reviewing them).

Dismayed that the attorneys general seemed to be leaning towards a modest settlement without a complete investigation, Harris left the meeting. She conducted her own investigation into the scale of the issue in California and found the damage to be more extensive than the $2 billion to $4 billion she expected the banks to offer her state. Harris pulled out of the multi-state negotiations altogether, receiving significant backlash for the move. 

When Harris was told she had pushed JPMorgan too far, she called the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon. After an initially heated discussion (“like dogs in a fight”, she recalls in the memoir), Harris explained what she needed from Dimon, and he promised to talk to the board. Two weeks later, the $2 billion to $4 billion was replaced by a $18 billion deal. 

4. She believes in criminal justice reform  

The criminal justice system is “broken”, according to Harris. She outlines many issues in her book, including reoffending rates, the financial burden of bail payments, and disproportionate arrests of people of colour.  

Harris believes “there must be serious consequences for people who commit serious crimes”, but there must be a different approach for less-serious offences. “I remember the first time I visited the county jail. So many young men, and they were mostly black or brown or poor. Too many were there because of addiction and desperation and poverty […] The majority weren’t there for violent offenses, and yet they had become drops in the sea of those swept up in a wave of mass incarceration.”  

In her memoir, Harris supports legalising marijuana and “dismantling the failed war on drugs”. She cites the FBI finding that, in 2016, more people were arrested for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes. Those arrested are disproportionately people of colour. “These racial disparities are staggering and unconscionable. We need to legalize marijuana and regulate it,” she writes. 

Harris also writes that America must “take on, head-on, the racial bias that operates throughout our criminal justice system”. She writes of the need for more “progressive prosecutors” from diverse backgrounds and highlights the implicit bias training programme she introduced for agents in her office’s Bureau of Law Enforcement. 

America also has a problem with high reoffending rates. “As a country, we specialize in releasing inmates into desperate, hopeless situations,” she writes, citing the 70% re-conviction rate for prisoners within three years of release. As District Attorney, she helped implement the Back on Track programme, a rehabilitation initiative for low-level offenders. According to Harris’s book, the recidivism rate for people who completed the programme was just 10%, in contrast to 50% for other offenders in the district. 

5. She stood up for asylum seekers

In the summer of 2014, tens of thousands of children and teenagers fled the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) and sought refuge in the United States. In Murrieta, California, several buses carrying approximately 140 undocumented children and parents were making their way to a processing centre, surrounded by protesters shouting “You’re not welcome”.  

At the same time, Harris claims there was pressure from Washington DC to speed up decisions on these asylum cases and, ultimately, turn the undocumented children and families away. 

“I had to do something about this, and I knew there wasn’t any time to waste,” she writes in her memoir.  

Harris called the managing partners of some of California's most prestigious law firms, as well as corporate lawyers from California-based entertainment companies such as Walt Disney and Warner Bros. She invited them to her office and secured as many pro-bono hours from them as possible. Soon after, she held a similar meeting in Northern California, to ensure the children had legal representation.  What’s more, she sponsored legislation to provide $3 million to nonprofits providing representation. 

Harris personally visited the Otay Mesa Detention Center in Southern California on 22^nd June 2018, where mothers seeking asylum had been separated from their children. She later described the mothers’ situation to the press as “a human rights abuse being committed by the United States government”.  

With Kamala Harris now the official Democrat presidential nominee, and the whole world watching the Democratic National Convention this week, The Truths We Hold is a timely read, packed with fascinating insights into Harris’ career, personal life, family history, and more. For more details, see below.