Kamala Harris, the Maya sister behind the victory: the lawyer with a passion for politics alongside Hillary Clinton in 2016

It almost has 340mila followers its Twitter, oversaw the election campaign of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is considered the main architect of the political success of her older sister, Kamala Harris, new vice president of the United States of America. Maya Harris, born in 1967, is a lawyer with a passion for i civil rights and a passion for politics. President of the election campaign of the Harris, Maya has taken care of the race towards the White House of his sister.

“Have you slept?” He asks Maya in a lovingly inquisitive tone to Kamala during a moment of pause in the Conference room of the Hilton Hotel in Miami. It is July 2019 and the city of Florida is one of the stages in the electoral campaign of Harris. “Yes, yes, I slept, don’t worry,” he replies Kamala in a hasty manner. Maya knows Kamala better than anyone else and their bond is visibly strong, like theirs complicity. “He’s the smartest and funniest person I know, I trust his a lot instinct and his opinion, ”he admitted Kamala in an interview with the magazine Politico.

It is not the first time that presidential candidates have chosen family members as close advisors. John F. Kennedy he had his brother at his side Bob, George W. Bush he had his father and former president George H.W. Bush e Donald Trump he had the favorite daughter Ivanka who was his high advisor for all four years of his mandate. but yet Maya has something more than the others. The American media, which have been covering her for a long time, are well aware of this. Just the title of an article in the magazine Politico gives a good idea: “Everyone is used to having stupid relatives: Kamala’s sister breaks with tradition ”, taking up the words of Neera Teeth, president of Center for American Progress, a public policy research institute.

After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1992, Maya, at just 29 years old, he took over the reins of the Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, California, becoming one of the youngest principals in the nation. Former executive director ofAmerican Civil Liberties Union of the California, a non-profit organization in defense of civil rights and freedoms, its commitment in this field is a family legacy: the mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a researcher specializing in the treatment of breast cancer, was an Indian activist, arrived in America to pursue a PhD atBerkeley University.

“It can be said that since the cradle they have instilled in us the values ​​of democracy and respect for civil rights and liberties ”, he declared Kamala Harris in a recent interview with Washington Post. “Let’s say that – continues Harris – as children we were surrounded by adults who marched for a thing called justice“. Strength and perseverance seem to be the hallmarks of Maya Harris and his life is there demonstration, like when, for example, at 17 she became pregnant. Young single mother, in her senior year of high school, rolled up her sleeves and, with the help of her mother Shyamala and her older sister, after graduating with honors, graduated in law. However, even now he doesn’t like to talk about this page of his life, he just says “it was hard”.

During the university years she then met her current husband Tony West, also a lawyer, with a background behind the scenes of the electoral campaign of Barack Obama in 2008. Just in those years, however Maya discovers that she is affected by lupus, serious illness autoimmune. “One morning, during my last semester in college, I woke up with a strange rash on my face,” she wrote in an article in the American magazine. The Atlantic. “When I saw it did not go away after consuming a whole bottle of cortisone, my mother convinced me to go to a doctor who discovered her ”.

Maya has publicly admitted that she is affected by the lupus following the statements by Trump on hydroxychloroquine, a drug antimalarico also used in the treatment ofrheumatoid arthritis and lupus. “I’m taking hydroxychloroquine and I’m fine,” the now former president said last May Trump, sponsoring a drug whose use for the Sars-Cov-2 it is still being examined by the scientific community. Also in this case, as in the defense of civil rights, the position of Maya it was not long in coming. “These affirmations create many problems for those who suffer from illnesses like mine who cure themselves with this drug – he declared in response to the tycoon – The reserves of this medicine could end if this belief is carried on and for us sick people it would be the end. It must be stopped ”. At this point, it is appropriate to say, “Yes, she did it”.

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