Rose Pierre-Louis was enjoying a fun day out at Creole Food Festival in Manhattan when she first heard the stunning news that President Biden had dropped out of the presidential race. The minutes that followed were a whirlwind as everyone wondered what President Biden would do next. As the co-founder and chairperson of The Haitian Roundtable, Pierre-Louis’ phone then started ringing nonstop with the news that came next: President Biden had endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run for president.
“I was with all of my Haitian roundtable sisters, board sisters, and everybody was excited. And then everybody in the restaurant, as the word started getting around, was excited. And I think people were like, ‘Let’s go!’ ” she said. “It was jubilant.”
Harris is the child of immigrants born to a Black Jamaican father, Donald Harris, and an Indian mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. Her election as vice president was historic as she became the first Black and South Asian person to hold that office. Harris stands to make history again if elected as president. However, what’s frequently overlooked in conversations about her background is her Caribbean heritage.
It’s a heritage that Harris is proud of and has made her who she is. “My father, like so many Jamaicans, has immense pride in our Jamaican heritage and instilled that same pride in my sister and me,” she wrote in an email to the Washington Post in 2021. “We love Jamaica. He taught us the history of where we’re from, the struggles and beauty of the Jamaican people, and the richness of the culture.”
For Pierre-Louis, a long-time Harris supporter, the significance of Vice President Harris’ candidacy was clear.
“For Black women, for the Caribbean diaspora, she represents all of our aspirations,” she said. “She has a unique understanding of our experience, of our culture and the challenges that our community face, and it’s my hope that once she’s elected, that she will be able to give the Caribbean the kind of attention that it deserves as an important region in the world.”
Hazra Ali, community affairs partner for NYC’s Caribbean American Heritage Month celebration and recipient of a Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, echoed the sentiment, saying, “I am Indo-Caribbean too. We identify with her on both levels — prideful, as a Caribbean, as a woman and as an Indo-Caribbean woman.”
Harris’ success as the child of immigrants also resonates with Ali. “She has been a warrior, you know, from the time she left law school, she’s been a person of service,” Ali said. “I think it’s a powerful reminder of the true impact of immigration, and that’s one of her policy positions, right, immigration and the global nature of the world we live in.”
Her candidacy and potential election as president of the United States would be a powerful symbol not only for Black or Indian people but for Caribbean people — adding to a long list of impactful Caribbean leaders from Jamaica, including Marcus Garvey, the pan-African activist to Shirley Chisholm, who was of Barbadian and Guyanese heritage and the first Black woman to run for president in the U.S., to Haitian-American Karine Jean-Pierre, President Biden’s press secretary.
Shivana Jorawar, co-executive director of Jahajee, a Queens-based organization that provides a healing space for Indo-Caribbean people in New York who’ve been impacted by gender-based violence, agrees that immigration is very important for Caribbean women — but she isn’t so sure Harris will enact policies that will help.
“I know for my members, immigrant rights is on the top of their minds always, and I have no assurance that she won’t be just as or almost as bad as a Trump presidency when it comes to immigration policy and immigrant rights,” said Jorawar.
Immigration is especially critical for the vulnerable community Jahajee serves. Women who are undocumented and married to an abuser frequently have their status used against them, forcing them to stay in the relationship out of fear of deportation, Jorawar explained, “These are things that really increase their risk of violence, and we are an organization that centers survivors of domestic and sexual violence and their ability to thrive.”
Pierre-Louis also acknowledges that gender-based violence is a problem that needs to be addressed in the Caribbean community. However, she believes Harris’ background as a prosecutor could be a huge asset in creating a framework to confront the issue, particularly in Haiti.
“I would hope that a Harris presidency would provide the opportunity and the support to implement systems, for example, you know training the police on how to properly respond on a rape case or a domestic violence case or a femicide rape kit…that does not exist in Haiti,” she said.
As for immigrants in the U.S., Pierre-Louis is confident that Harris, because of her immigrant upbringing, will usher in a more humane immigration policy.
“My hope is that when Vice President Harris is elected and is president of the United States that we can have a clear minded conversation that is not based in xenophobia, about the importance of immigration,” she said.
Jorawar also has a wish list which includes a streamlined immigration policy.
“I would love to see a meaningful pathway to citizenship that isn’t riddled with obstacles and hoops to jump through,” Jorawar said. “I would also love to see her in the next couple of months before the election takes place, make a statement and commit to changing this administration’s policy on Palestine.”
However, Jorawar holds a more favorable view of Harris’ record on rights for domestic workers and her commitment to advancing reproductive freedom.
“Kamala Harris has been a champion for domestic workers,” she said. “When she was in California, she worked with the National Domestic Workers Alliance to pass a bill of rights there, and it is my highest hope that a Harris presidency would mean more progress when it comes to rights for these low wage women workers who are very vulnerable. And I also really want to see her push the strategy to regain abortion rights in this country forward.”
Abortion rights are very important for the health and safety of Caribbean women too, Ali said, adding that she doesn’t want what she witnessed growing up in Trinidad to happen here in the United States. “I mean, in the Caribbean, I know a lot of mothers died because they would do a backyard abortion.”
Pierre-Louis for her part, knows there are challenges ahead to Harris’ candidacy but she’s fired up to get her into the White House.
“All I know is in my social media feeds, no one’s talking about anybody else. I don’t talk about anything else. It’s all Kamala, all the time, and I love that,” she said. “I hope to channel that enthusiasm in the weeks and months that follow to have a serious impact, mobilize the Caribbean community, register the people who are not registered to vote and…particularly our seniors that we make sure they get to the polls. That’s the mission now.”
