Dreaming Big, by Abby Aguirre was originally published in the April 2018 issue of Vogue.
Senator Kamala Harris into a conference room.
Inside, a group of young Latino congressional staffers has gathered to meet the Democratic star from California.
Photographed by Zoe Ghertner,Vogue, April 2018
But this year has been anything but normal.
She greets the 20-somethings as though they’re relatives at a family reunion: Hi, everybody!
The startled staffer springs to his feet.
Kevin, he says, extending a hand.
What’s your last name?
She shakes his hand.
(That’s pronounced comma-la, by the way, and you’d better get it right.)
Harris is a courtroom litigator.
But exchanges like this one are also tutorials.
So you’re looking at your future, Harris says.
He was succeeded by Barbara Boxer, and I succeeded Barbara Boxer.
Tonight is the State of the Union.
Harris reads the room.
The group nods solemnly.
Harris says she’s resolved to leave anger behind.
TheFridayreference draws big laughs.
This year, I’m just gonna be a joyful warrior.
It’s a heavy list: deported veterans, bail reform, Puerto Rico relief, affordable housing.
One staffer from Arizona reports that she is investigating the dangers posed to pregnant women in immigration detention centers.
Harris asks, referring to Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County known for vigilante-style roundups.
Yes, the staffer responds, Arpaio has announced his campaign for Senate.
Another reason to be a joyful warrior!
(She cofounded a Facebook group called Slay, Kamala, Slay.)
Harris settles down next to her while an aide runs through Joseph’s lineup of media interviews.
It’s about you, but it’s not about you, Harris says to calm her nerves.
Think of all the people who are counting on you to deliver your message.
Before they leave, Joseph asks to take a selfie with the senator.
In 2012, Harris spoke in prime time at the Democratic National Convention.
(Questions she is well practiced at deflecting.
But you haven’t ruled it out, I say.
I’m not focused on it, she repeats.)
As the state’s former top cop, Harris knows this better than anyone.
It’s fearmongering, she tells me.
Let’s be realistic.
It’s easier to sow hate and division than it is to offer people a meaningful, sustaining solution.
Harris says that she feels a particular duty to protect DACA recipients.
The DACA population was given something that this president arbitrarily took away, she says.
September 5, he decided to rescind DACA.
Arbitrarily put in the date of March 5 if it’s not done.
This is a population of people we’re not talking about giving somenewright to, she says.
They had to qualify for their status.
They didn’t just say I want it and they got it.
They had to be vetted.
They come to my office every day panicked.
Plenty of national politicians wax poetic about Dreamers.
Few can defend them with Harris’s command.
This stance has been applauded by some progressives and immigrant rights groups.
It’s unclear how it’s going over with her colleagues.
I say we fight
Harris was born to two Berkeley graduate students in the fall of 1964.
Shyamala set incredibly high expectations, Maya says.
They were allowed to watch cartoons only if they simultaneously did something productive, like needlepoint or knitting.
I have no idea how many blankets Kamala must have crocheted, Maya tells me.
She was the mad crocheter.
She had a code.
I don’t play a violin about my childhood, she says firmly.
She was the purest form of the Harris women, Harris says.
We’re all diluted versions of my grandmother.
One by one, people came to pay homage.
It was like a scene out ofThe Godfather, Harris says with a laugh.
This was the Reagan era, and the war on drugs and anti-apartheid movement dominated campus politics.
Her college friend Sonya Lockett describes their Howard years as formative.
You saw these false narratives being shaped around poor people, African-Americans, drug users, Lockett says.
It did affect you.
Lockett remembers Harris as a charismatic member of the debate teamwith a fun side.
One day, they were sitting on the campus yard with other students.
All of a sudden she jumps up and just starts dancing, Lockett says.
Nothing we had to say mattered.
It was just like: I’m sorry, Parliament’s on.
Why are we talking?
Harris settled in Oakland as a prosecutor, and later joined the San Francisco D.A.
By the time she decided to run for district attorney, she had a reputation for fearlessness.
Entering the race meant running against her former boss, Terence Hallinan.
(Brown was married.)
Harris rebuffed questions about Brown with typical forcefulness.
I refuse to design my campaign around criticizing Willie Brown, she told a local reporter.
(Senator Dianne Feinstein criticized her decision at the officer’s funeral.)
She got about four inches from my nose and said, We talked about this before.
Do we have to talk about it again?
I was taken to the woodshed real fast, Barge says.
She has a strong moral compass.
It’s not B.S.
Harris won reelection in 2007.
Her supporters point to her work after the financial crisis.
Californians eventually got $20 billion instead.
It’s not just about how much money was in the settlement, says Senator Elizabeth Warren.
It’s how aggressively Kamala and her team stayed after the banks to verify they followed through.
They married the following year (Maya officiated), and Harris moved in with Emhoff in Brentwood.
Harris grew close with his two children, who call her their S-Mamala.
The younger, Ella, is a freshman at Parsons School of Design.)
I’ve gotten pretty handy in the kitchen as her sous-chef.
I say we fight.
I didn’t share one chip with anyone.
I was just like: This.
It is easy now to forget how fast thingsdidhappen.
The Muslim ban came down in January and my phone started burning up, Harris remembers.
Lawyers calling me from the airports saying, Come.
That night Harris phoned then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.
His first response was, Why are you calling me at home with this?
Harris says, pausing to register her disbelief.
And so it went for months.
In reflection, it was just rapid-fire, and almost everything was unpredictable.
There was no preparing for it in any way, strategically or mentally or emotionally.
She also joined Kirsten Gillibrand in calling for Senator Al Franken to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
Listen, I was reluctant, Harris says now about that decision.
I felt a bit conflicted about it.
But ultimately I think the issue is something that has to be addressed wherever it occurs.
Harris rejects the notion that the #MeToo movement is merely a women’s issue.
And I’m like, I don’t know what to tell you.
I’ve always been a woman.
Or even at the Women’s March.
People come up to me, Oh, talk to us about women’s issues.
And I look at them and I’m like, You know what?
I’m so glad you want to talk about the economy.
I’m not able to be rushed this fast, he complained.
It makes me nervous.
When she didn’t let up, Senators John McCain and Richard Burr interrupted and admonished Harris.
At the time she thought nothing of it.
Others saw the moment differently.
Boo-hoo, says Senator Warren of Sessions’s nervous comment.
This was a tough woman doing her job.
The exchange also resonated with Gillibrand.
Later, Harris watched the video clips and understood the furor they caused.
I certainly saw how it appeared, and completely appreciated how everyone responded, she says.
When I ask Emhoff about the Sessions hearing, he jokes: Welcome to Tuesday night at my house.
Harris has known Boyle, a revered figure in L.A., since her D.A.
Today she is here to meet with a group of Dreamers and to be photographed for this profile.
Though she is running on two hours of sleep, Harris is visibly energized by the Dreamers.
She is wearing a black U.S. Olympic team jacket, dark jeans, and sneakers.
The Phenomenon of Kamala Harris has become something of a rainmaker for the Democratic Party.
But her value extends beyond fund-raising.
He adds: You know that old saying, you could’t be what you could’t see?
Well, now you’re free to see it.
Which again raises the question: Might this new symbol be preparing for a presidential run in 2020?
If she did run, what a gift to the country that would be, he says.
