Women of color in Minnesota find representation in Harris, call for continued change

In the hours after a tight presidential race was called in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, the significance and symbolism of the moment was felt from Washington, D.C. to the Twin Cities.

On Sunday, five Minnesota women shared their reactions to the reality that Harris will be the first woman and the first person of color to become vice president of the United States.

“When she walked out last night, I just bawled. I was bawling,” said former Minnesota State Rep. Erin Maye Quade.

“I saw this picture of all of the vice presidents throughout history and then Kamala Harris,” Quade said. “And it’s really, really hard to tell little girls they can be anything they want to be, and you can show them things that they want to be and everyone who’s been it before and no one ever looks like them, no one ever has hair like them, no one has ever been called the names they’ve been called. To see it is different than knowing, theoretically, someday someone could.”

Latisha Townsend shared similar sentiments. The Minneapolis native is a graduate student pursuing her master’s degree at Howard University, a historically Black university and Harris’s alma mater.

“I definitely cried some tears last night, but it’ll feel really good to see it happen in January officially,” Townsend said.

“There are many women and Black women I can look up to historically, but now there’s a person in office for the first time and she’s living and breathing and there’s a chance I could meet her and just see her in action,” Townsend said. “Watching her last night, I’m like, ‘I think that’s the kind of leader I want to be.’”

As the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, Harris has also touched members of the Indian-American community in Minnesota.

Government Relations Chair of the India Association of Minnesota (IAM) Shanti Shah described her feelings as “nothing but pride.”

“It was always hard to fathom that we will have a daughter of immigrants serve as the first woman vice president,” Shah said. “We know (Harris) is not just going to be a token. … She’s a smart woman who has done a lot of work already.”

The significance of this moment in history was not lost Eden Prairie High School student Akshitha Ginuga and University of Minnesota student Meghana Chimata.

“It’s making the White House and the federal government look more like what America really is because America is the place that was built by immigrants,” Chimata said.

“I want her to usher in a new era of diversification of the White House — and not just the Cabinet, but even lower-level positions,” Ginuga said. “I want this to represent a push for change.”

Quade, who is now advocacy director at the nonprofit Gender Justice, warns Harris alone cannot make the kinds of changes some are seeking, from fighting the COVID-19 pandemic to closing the gender pay gap.

“It won’t change if we don’t do the work,” Quade said. “Election Day was not the end of a long road. I mean it was the end of a long road, but it’s the beginning of a lot of work.”