Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris lived in Berkeley, CA., when she was a child.

Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California, on 20 October 1964. She lived in Berkeley until 1976, when she, her mother, and her sister moved to Montreal, Canada. Kamala returned to the United States after attending high school in Canada. Kamala Harris graduated from Howard University in Washington D.C. and from UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. 

She became an Alameda County prosecuting attorney before being elected San Francisco District Attorney. She was then elected California Attorney General. Kamala Harris is now a California Senator in the United States Congress. 

Click on an image to view the full-size photograph. 

This is a view of a two-unit apartment building located at 1227 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. Kamala Harris, her mother Shyamala Gopalan, and her sister Maya lived in the upstairs apartment. Shyamala Gopalan came to UC Berkeley from India in 1958 to study for her Ph.D. She met and married Donald Harris, a fellow graduate student, who was an immigrant from Jamaica. They separated when Kamala Harris was a young child.

Kamala Harris attended Thousand Oaks Elementary School in Berkeley. Harris has often commented that she started kindergarten one year after the Berkeley school system launched its student integration program.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention, August 2020.

Kamala Harris is shown with her mother and Mrs. Francis Wilson, her first grade Berkeley school teacher. Kamala Harris has just received her law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

THEN: Kamala Harris, her sister Maya, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, as seen on Milvia Street, in Berkeley. This photo is circa 1969.

NOW Here is a view of the same scene on Milvia Street, the cross street is Berkeley Way. November 2020. 

Here are Kamala and Maya Harris, as seen in their Berkeley apartment during Christmas,1968. 

Thanks to Natalie Orenstein, the author, and Berkeleyside, the publisher,  for publishing information about Kamala Harris' childhood in Berkeley, California.

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"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” Dorothea Lange 

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." Henri Carter-Bresson

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"The important thing is not the camera but the eye." Alfred Eisenstaedt

The first volume of the San Francisco Bay Area Photo Blog contains galleries of photographs posted on the Internet between 2002 and 2011. Click Here to view those photos.

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