The Truths We Hold

by Kamala Harris

  “I’m going to be stepping down soon. Are you interested?”

  It was, needless to say, a lot to take in. Did I want to be United States attorney general? Did I want to hold the office that Bobby Kennedy once held? Of course I did. This was the kind of job I used to daydream about during lectures in law school. And this wasn’t just any moment or any president. This was Barack Obama, my friend and my president, whose leadership I so admired and whom I had been so proud to support. To join his cabinet would have been the honor of my life.

  And yet I wasn’t sure if I truly wanted the job. By the time Holder stepped down, there would be fewer than two years left in the administration. What kind of opportunity would I have to create a real agenda?

  The next time Holder and I spoke, I brought up Back on Track. I said that if there was a budget at the Department of Justice to fund and create incentives for local reentry initiatives, then I would be interested in the job. I wanted to be able to create real reform at a national level, with an approach that prioritized prevention. Alas, as Holder explained, there wasn’t any existing budget for such an effort, and any new funding would have to be approved by Congress—which we both knew was not going to happen.

  That was disheartening. But I still knew the job wasn’t something to be turned down lightly. Like every lawyer I know, I listed the pros and cons on a yellow pad. I batted the options back and forth with Doug and other members of the family. I did my best to argue both sides.

  One day, one of my best friends suggested we take a hike in the Windy Hill Open Space Preserve, near Palo Alto. She thought the outdoor air and beautiful rolling hilltops might refresh my state of mind—and she was right. Away from the office, the contours of my choice came into sharper relief. With every step, I saw more clearly what I wanted to do, and why.

  Inevitably, there would be limitations that came with the job. I took that as a given. But as I talked with my friend, and she raised all the right questions, I realized the real reason behind my resistance to the offer: I already had a job I loved, and work I still wanted to do.

  I thought about my first days as California attorney general, when I’d learned that we had a big backlog of rape kits. I thought about all the work we were putting in to reduce the backlog, about the innovations we deployed to triple the number of cases that could be handled. Earlier in 2014, my Rapid DNA Service team received an award from the Department of Justice for our achievements. I thought about our work on human trafficking, too, which had been an unseen problem for so long, and our efforts to combat the brutal criminal organizations and street gangs that traded in human lives.

  I thought about the fight I’d been able to lead, first as district attorney and then as attorney general, to stop defendants in hate crimes from using what’s known as the “gay and trans panic defense.” In 2002, a seventeen-year-old woman, Gwen Araujo, had been brutally beaten and murdered in Newark, California. Her killers, two of whom had been involved with her sexually, had tried to justify their actions in court by claiming that they had panicked upon learning that Araujo was transgender, to the point of temporary insanity. It was ludicrous. As district attorney, I had organized a conference of prosecutors and law enforcement officials from across the country to push back against the idea that criminal conduct could be mitigated by prejudice. And as attorney general, in that summer of 2014, I was working with the governor and state legislature on what would be a successful effort to ban such a defense statewide. I thought about how much that meant to me.

  I thought about the Bureau of Children’s Justice, a new initiative I was still developing with one of my special assistant attorneys general, Jill Habig, which would be entirely devoted to making sure the rights of all of California’s children were protected. There was a lot on that agenda, and I was eager to see it all through.

  I thought about the work we were doing to prepare to open up state crime data to the public, a first-of-its-kind transparency initiative led by special assistant attorneys general Daniel Suvor and Justin Erlich, which we would call OpenJustice.

  Likewise, we were taking Back on Track and my truancy initiative statewide.

  And then there were the corporate predators who took advantage of students and veterans and homeowners and the poor. I loved being the voice and advocate for the people they mistreated. The lawyers on my team knew how serious I was about holding corporate predators accountable. They would joke that “Kamala” meant “Get more commas in that settlement price.”

  And of course, the banks. The fight with them was still ongoing. We were still bringing lawsuits, and I had no plans of backing down.

  By the time our hike was over, my friend and I both knew I’d made my decision. It wouldn’t be about the title or the perception of prestige. What mattered to me was the work. And when it came to the work that mattered most, I wasn’t finished yet.

  Later that evening, I called Holder to let him know. Then Doug and I curled up on the couch with the kids and a big bowl of popcorn and, for the second time, watched Iron Man 2.

  Five

  I SAY WE FIGHT

  I’ll always remember how I felt in November 1992, as a twenty-eight-year-old prosecutor, driving across the bridge from my home in Oakland into San Francisco to celebrate the victory of newly elected U.S. senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. They were the first female senators from California, and the first two women to represent any state at the same time. Their election was a highlight of the so-called Year of the Woman, and an inspiration to girls and women everywhere, including me.

  I recalled that celebration twenty-two years later when, in early January 2015, Senator Boxer posted a video of herself in conversation with her oldest grandchild, Zach. She talked about the issues she cared about, the issues for which she’d fought over three decades in Congress—a strong middle class, a woman’s right to choose, the environment, civil rights, human rights—and underscored that she wasn’t going to give them up. But, as she told Zach, she wanted to come home to California. And so she wouldn’t be running for reelection.

  November 2016 was almost two years away, but I had a decision to make. Should I run to replace Senator Boxer? It would be an opportunity to take the issues we were driving forward in the California attorney general’s office and bring them to the national stage. Becoming a U.S. senator would be a natural extension of the work I was already doing—fighting for families feeling the burden of stagnant wages, soaring housing costs, and diminishing opportunity; for people imprisoned in a broken criminal justice system; for students exploited by predatory lenders and burdened by skyrocketing tuition; for victims of fraud and white-collar crime; for immigrant communities, for women, for older people. I knew it mattered whose voice was represented at the table where national priorities and policies are set.

  I announced my candidacy on January 13, 2015. Eventually, so did thirty-three others. Doug, for whom it was his first major campaign, had to get used to a new kind of scrutiny. We still laugh about the time a reporter asked me who would play me in a movie about my life. I deflected—said I didn’t know. Doug was not as prudent. He answered the question and the resulting article said he was “delighted” at the prospect of being played by Bradley Cooper.

  I tackled the race as I had every other, meeting as many people as I could, listening carefully to their concerns, mapping a plan of action to address them. As the campaign rolled on, my team and I crisscrossed the state in what we called the Kamoji bus, because of the giant emoji caricature of me painted on the back door.

  Because of California’s unique “jungle primary,” I ultimately found myself in a runoff against fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, a longtime member of Congress. She was a tough, determined opponent who kept fighting until the end. I was fortunate enough to have on my team some of the best people in the business—my brilliant campaign manager, Juan Rodriguez, and my longtime strategic advisers Sean Clegg and Ace Smith, along with Elli
e Caple, and an extraordinarily dedicated group of staff and volunteers. My goddaughter, Helena, was among them. She started a newsletter, interviewing the staff and chronicling our efforts. Our team was in it together every step of the way, and I couldn’t have done it without them.

  The two-year campaign passed both fast and slow. But even as I focused on my state, my campaign, and the work before me, something ugly and alarming was infecting the presidential election. The Republican primary was turning into a race to the bottom—a race to anger, a race to blame, a race to fan the flames of xenophobic nativism. And the man who prevailed crossed every boundary of decency and integrity—bragging about sexually assaulting women; mocking people with disabilities; race baiting; demonizing immigrants; attacking war heroes and Gold Star families; and fomenting hostility, even hatred, toward the press.

  As a result, Election Night 2016 was not a night for cheering. It was no longer about the race that had just ended. It was about the fight that was clearly now beginning. Drawing on the words of Coretta Scott King, I reminded the audience that freedom must be fought for and won by every generation.

  “It is the very nature of this fight for civil rights and justice and equality that whatever gains we make, they will not be permanent. So we must be vigilant,” I said. “Understanding that, do not despair. Do not be overwhelmed. Do not throw up our hands when it is time to roll up our sleeves and fight for who we are.”

  I didn’t know, when I spoke to my supporters that night, exactly what was to come. But I did know this: we would need to stand strong and stand together.

  On Thursday, November 10, less than forty-eight hours after my election, I visited the headquarters of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

  CHIRLA is one of Los Angeles’s oldest immigrant rights advocacy organizations. It was founded in 1986, after President Reagan, a former California governor, signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which, among other things, gave legal status to undocumented immigrants who had entered the United States before 1982. CHIRLA’s original mission was to inform immigrants about the process by which they could apply for legal status and about their rights to work. It trained community organizers, challenged anti-immigrant laws like California’s Proposition 187, which prohibited undocumented immigrants from getting nonemergency public services, and it eventually took on a national portfolio by building coalitions all across the country. It was the first place I wanted to speak officially as senator-elect.

  Angelica Salas, CHIRLA’s indefatigable executive director, was there to greet me when I arrived. The room was full. It was full of strong, brave women—young women to mothers to grandmothers to great-grandmothers—working women who did everything from domestic work to home health care work, some of whom spoke fluent English and some of whom spoke only Spanish, all of them ready to fight.

  In their courage, their dignity, and their determination, they reminded me of my mother. Standing among them, I thought about the duality of the immigrant experience in America.

  On the one hand, it is an experience characterized by an extraordinary sense of hopefulness and purpose, a deep belief in the power of the American Dream—an experience of possibility. At the same time, it is an experience too often scarred by stereotyping and scapegoating, in which discrimination, both explicit and implicit, is part of everyday life.

  My mother was the strongest person I have ever known, but I always felt protective of her, too. In part, I suppose, that instinct to protect comes from being the older child. But I also knew my mother was a target. I saw it, and it made me mad. I have too many memories of my brilliant mother being treated as though she were dumb because of her accent. Memories of her being followed around a department store with suspicion, because surely a brown-skinned woman like her couldn’t afford the dress or blouse that she had chosen.

  I also remember how seriously she took any encounter with government officials. Whenever we would come back from traveling abroad, my mother made sure Maya and I were on our best behavior as we went through customs. “Stand up straight. Don’t laugh. Don’t fidget. Have all your stuff. Be prepared.” She knew that every word she spoke would be judged, and she wanted us to be ready. The first time Doug and I went through customs together, my muscle memory kicked in. I was preparing myself in the usual way, making sure we had everything just right and in order. Meanwhile, Doug was as relaxed as ever. It frustrated me that he was so casual. He was genuinely perplexed, innocently wondering, “What’s the problem?” We had been raised in different realities. It was eye-opening for us both.

  For as long as ours has been a nation of immigrants, we have been a nation that fears immigrants. Fear of the other is woven into the fabric of our American culture, and unscrupulous people in power have exploited that fear in pursuit of political advantage. In the mid-1850s, the first significant third-party movement in the United States, the so-called Know-Nothing Party, rose to popularity on an anti-immigrant platform. In 1882, an act of Congress banned Chinese immigrants to the country. In 1917, Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto in order to establish a host of new restrictions on immigrants, including a literacy requirement. Concerns about growing numbers of newcomers from Southern and Eastern Europe resulted in the imposition of immigration quotas in 1924. In 1939, nearly 1,000 German Jews fleeing the Nazis in a ship called the St. Louis were turned away from the United States. A plan to allow 20,000 Jewish children into the country was outright rejected. And shortly after, the U.S. government interned some 117,000 people of Japanese ancestry.

  More recently, as globalization has robbed the country of millions of jobs and displaced huge swaths of the middle class, immigrants have become convenient targets for blame. When the Great Recession ravaged rural America, a number of Republican politicians pointed to immigration as the problem, even as they filibustered a bill that would have created new jobs. Despite the profound role they have played in building and shaping America, immigrants who come here to seek a better life have always made for an easy scapegoat.

  Our country was built by many hands, by people from every part of the world. And over the centuries, immigrants have helped to lift and fuel the economy—providing labor to industrialize it and brainpower to create society-altering innovations. Immigrants and their children were the creative minds behind many of our best-known brands—from Levi Strauss to Estée Lauder. Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, was a Russian immigrant. Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, came here from Taiwan. Mike Krieger, the co-founder of Instagram, is an immigrant from Brazil. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, was born in Greece. In fact, in 2016, researchers at the National Foundation for American Policy found that more than half of Silicon Valley’s billion-dollar startups were founded by one or more immigrants.

  I stood by the podium at CHIRLA, with an American flag and stars-and-stripes balloons in the backdrop, as a mother—a house cleaner from the San Fernando Valley—spoke in Spanish about her fears of deportation. I could barely translate her words, but I understood their meaning and I could feel her anguish. It was visible in her eyes, in her posture. She wanted to be able to tell her children that everything would be okay, but she knew she couldn’t.

  I thought of the nearly six million American children who live in a home with at least one undocumented family member and the trauma and stress that the election had wrought. I had heard many stories of safety plans that were being put in place—mothers telling their children, “If Mommy doesn’t come home right after work, call your aunt or uncle to come and get you.” It reminded me of the safety plans I’d seen when I was working with victims of domestic abuse. In both cases, there needed to be a contingency plan to mitigate against an impending harm.

  Advocates working with families told us how children were afraid to go to school, not knowing if their parents would still be there when they got home. Parents canceled their children’s pediatrician appointmen
ts out of fear that ICE would be waiting for them. Likewise, I knew that parents, at that moment, were facing harrowing decisions about what to do with their American children if they were deported. Should the children stay with a relative in the United States? Should they go with their parents to a country that they had never known? Either option was heartbreaking to imagine. And I knew it wasn’t just undocumented people who were terrified. According to research published in American Behavioral Scientist, all Latinx immigrants—whether citizens, legal residents, or undocumented—experience the fear of deportation at the same rates. I wanted them to know I had their back.

  “This is a time in our country for coalition building,” I said, reminded of the work I had seen and done through the years. “We are going to fight for the ideals of this country,” I told them, “and we are not going to let up until we have won.”

  I left CHIRLA two days after the election feeling both encouraged and worried. I knew we were preparing for battle together. But I knew, too, that we were underdogs in the fight. We were going to have to steel ourselves for all that was to come.

  * * *

  • • •

  Things moved very quickly. The following week, Doug and I flew across the country to Washington for new senators’ orientation. A bipartisan group of senators and their spouses hosted us for three jam-packed days of sessions, during which we were informed about Senate rules and procedures, ethics, and how to set up a Senate office. Doug studied the spouses’ binder like a Talmudic scholar.

  Nathan Barankin, my number two in the California Department of Justice, agreed to move his family to Washington, and he began the intensive process of selecting and vetting my new team as my chief of staff. We had only the period between Election Day and New Year’s to build the office virtually from scratch—poring over some five thousand résumés to fill a host of positions from policy and constituent relations to communications, correspondence, and more. Hiring a diverse staff was important to me—veterans, women, people of color. I wanted my staff in Washington and our state offices to reflect the people we represent.