The bond between Kamala Harris and her younger sister, Maya, is a strong one. And it’s captured perfectly in an emotional image snapped during the inauguration ceremony and shared on Twitter, accompanied by a throwback pic. In the right-hand-photo, in the background of the shot, you can spot Maya bawling her eyes out, as her elder sibling became the first woman, first Black and first South-Asian vice-president of the United States.
Maya served as a political advisor during both Hillary Clinton’s presidential run and her sister’s own brief presidential campaign in 2019. The 53-year-old lawyer “has been at her sister’s side since childhood,” according to an earlier HuffPost Canada story.
In another article on the Harris sisterhood, in the Independent, it was reported that Maya “has been dubbed ‘Bobby Kennedy’” by their inner circle, by way of comparison with “the late politician’s relationship with brother John F. Kennedy before becoming a political force himself.”
The Harris girls were raised by their single mom, breast cancer researcher Dr. Shyamala Harris, who died in 2009. In an Instagram post hours before the swearing-in ceremony, Maya acknowledged that their mother’s absence was keenly felt on such a significant day.
She posted a childhood photo of herself, Kamala and their late mother, with the caption, “Whew, missing Mommy this morning.”
But that wasn’t the first sisterly-support post of the day. Maya was up early on Inauguration Day, Instagramming her enthusiastic support for Kamala at 6 a.m. with a bright-eyed selfie, in which she was proudly sporting her official inauguration T-shirt. “Rise and shine!,” she wrote.
On Nov. 7, when the Biden-Harris election victory was finally called, Maya tweeted her joy to the world with the teary shot below, and the words “I am so very proud of you sis.”
And for American Thanksgiving she shared the sweetest throwback pic of her and Kamala deep in what appears to be a super-intense sister conference at the family table in 2004, captioned “Some things never change.”
Maya never misses an opportunity to express her love and admiration for Kamala. Last October, she wished her big sister a happy birthday, with a series of laughing-Kamala photos from across the decades.
The sweetest of all showed a young puff-haired Kamala, letting out a belly laugh, with her then-literal baby sister on her lap. “Happy Birthday to America’s Joyful Warrior—❤️ you, sis!,” wrote Maya.
It’s not all sentimental soppiness between the two, though. A 2012 interview featured a whole lot of roasting and roaring with laughter, as Kamala, former attorney-general of California, pulled rank and called herself “big sister general.”
On National Siblings Day, Kamala reverted back to sentimental mode: “I would not be the same person without my brilliant and thoughtful sister by my side. Happy National Siblings Day, Maya!,” she wrote, in an Instagram caption posted alongside a vintage family photo of the two holding hands as little girls.
In an interview with the Washington Post last year, Kamala said of her relationship with Maya, “We forged a bond that is unbreakable. When I think about it, all of the joyous moments in our lives, all of the challenging moments, all of the moments of transition, we have always been together.”
The Harrises are an inspiration to little girls with big dreams of running the world ... like these two kids who paid homage to the high-powered sibs last Halloween:
Way to celebrate the sisterhood!
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