Attorney Generals' offices press releases: on Principles & Values

Kamala Harris: Campaign lit: "First African-American & Asian-American A.G."

If elected, Harris would be "the first female, the first African-American, the first Asian-American attorney general in California and the first South Asian-American attorney general in the nation," according to her campaign literature.

Harris was born in Oakland and grew up in the liberal bastion of Berkeley during its 1960s-'70s heyday. Her parents attended graduate school there, and they took Harris to many civil rights protests, instilling in her a sense of social justice. Her first name means "lotus flower" in Sanskrit.

Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, immigrated from Chennai, India. Her father, Donald Harris, became a Stanford University economics professor.