Column: At DNC, Harris turns otherness into her superpower

On the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention, “Scandal” actor Kerry Washington and the grandnieces of Kamala Harris had a job to do: teach folks how to say the vice president’s name.

“It’s come to my attention that there are some folks who struggle or pretend to struggle with the proper pronunciation of our future president’s name,” said Washington in front of the roaring crowd at Chicago’s United Center. “So hear me out, confusion is understandable. Disrespect is not. So tonight, we are going to help everyone get it right.”

“First you say ‘comma,’ like a comma in a sentence,” said Amara Ajagu.

“Then you say ‘La’,” like [singing] la,la,la,la,la” said Leela Ajagu. Then all three said, “Put it together and its … Kamala!”

Adorable and instructive? Absolutely. And also fearless (pronounced “feer-less”). How could something so sweet pack such a punch? Because the moment was anchored in a first-of-its-kind major party convention where the candidate’s mixed race and immigrant experience was presented as a superpower rather than an obstacle.

The DNC capitalized on Harris’ experience growing up the biracial daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, both immigrants, taking every chance it could to highlight her exceptional trajectory to the top of the Democratic ticket. Leaning into the nation’s changing demographics was a bold and necessary campaign step and runs counter to the negative immigrant themes of 21st century politics. Now, her background is a point of connectivity for many Americans.

Having one or two parents with accents, from continents and countries outside Europe, is not a unique experience in 2024. But it is unique to hear about it in such detail from a presidential hopeful. Her campaign wisely seized the narrative, playing offense against the predictably xenophobic rhetoric from the right.

With only a month to organize after President Biden stepped out of the race, the DNC found a way to package Harris’ “otherness” as a selling point rather than a drawback, gambling that the majority of the electorate will find her story appealing and, for some, familiar, even comforting.

Harris’ kicked off her acceptance speech Thursday night by telling the country who she is through the journey of her parents: “My mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer.”

“When she finished school,” Harris added, “she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage. But as fate would have it, she met my father, Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and got married, and that act of self-determination made my sister, Maya, and me.”

The DNC’s celebration of her immigrant background was in sharp contrast to the RNC last month, where the crowd held up signs reading “MASS DEPORTATION NOW!” and speaker after speaker warned that immigrants were a scourge. The divisive tactic has been a successful rallying point for Trump, who rose from reality TV host to head of the Republican Party thanks in large part to the lure of his bigoted bluster.

In 2008, Trump and others weaponized Barack Obama’s otherness against him, using the young Illinois senator’s background to sow doubt about his character, faith and citizenship status. Obama’s father was Black and from Kenya and mother was a white Midwestern girl. Obama “went high” and rarely addressed the nonsense, but he also rarely spoke of his father. The childhood he spoke of was being raised by his single mother and grandmother, both of whom were from Kansas, an unimpeachable locale for those who wished to paint him as an interloper.

Trump has tried the same tactic with Harris, purposely mispronouncing her name “Ka-MAH-la.” He posted a photo of her wearing an Indian sari as part of his ongoing attack on her biracial identity. Last month during an appearance at the National Assn. of Black Journalists’ annual convention he said, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know. Is she Indian? Or is she Black?”

But if news polls are any indication, Trump’s old playbook isn’t as effective as it once was. Or maybe it’s because his rhetoric is becoming more and more obsolete each year. According to the Census Bureau, 42 million Americans, or 13% of the country, identify as multiracial.

And the foreign-born population in the United States is around 46.2 million, or 13.9% of the total population. Now add the second-generation kids of those immigrants, who make up about 10% of the adult population (we’re not even counting the large numbers of first-gen kids under 18) and you have, well, a lot of folks who have more in common with Harris than her opponent.

Even before Harris hit the stage for her speech, DNC viewers were primed. They had heard South Asian actor Mindy Kaling (“The Office”) about her experience cooking Indian cuisine with Kamala, heard multiple speakers recount the bravery and resolve of immigrants like Harris’ parents and witnessed firsthand the diversity of the vice president’s blended family, many of whom attended the convention.

“My mother was a brilliant, 5-foot-tall brown woman with an accent,” said Harris in her speech. “And as the eldest child, I saw how the world would sometimes treat her. But my mother never lost her cool .… She taught us to never complain about injustice, but do something about it.”

She continued, “My mother had another lesson she used to teach: Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.”

And someday they may even learn how to pronounce your name.