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As Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to accept the Democratic presidential nomination, her family, including her husband Doug Emhoff, stepchildren, and sister Maya Harris, are expected to support her from the stands. However, it remains uncertain whether her father, Donald J. Harris, will attend the event in Chicago. Donald J. Harris, Kamala's only surviving parent following the death of her mother Shyamala Gopalan in 2009, has not been seen at the DNC this week.
Donald J. Harris is an economist and retired professor emeritus at Stanford University. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the U.S. to pursue a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, where he met Shyamala. They had two daughters, Kamala and Maya, before their divorce. Despite the split, Donald continued to be involved in his children's lives on weekends and during the summer, as detailed in Kamala’s 2019 memoir, *The Truths We Hold*.
Donald Harris, known for his Marxist economic views, has also worked as an economic advisor for Jamaica. He has largely stayed away from his daughter's political endeavors and did not make any public statements during her 2020 vice presidential campaign. His last significant comment regarding Kamala’s career came in 2019, following her response to a question about her past marijuana use. He expressed strong disapproval of the connection made between his family and stereotypes in a statement to Jamaica Global Online.
While Donald Harris concluded his academic career at Stanford, he previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the family lived from Kamala’s ages three to five. This period in Madison, where Donald was an associate professor and Shyamala worked as a cancer researcher, was cited by Kamala in her memoir as a factor in her parents' separation.