We all know politics can get ugly, and when you run for office, it’s clear that everyone and anyone is going to look into your background. Now that Kamala Harris is running for President, people are paying attention to every moves she makes and asking questions about her life, including where she lived when she was a child.
We know a lot about Harris’s political accomplishments, from her time as a prosecutor to her years as VP, and we know a bit about her personal life, such as her marriage to Doug Emhoff. As she kicks her presidential race into high gear, we want to learn more about her father, along with where she spent her younger years.
What country did Kamala Harris live in when she was younger?
Harris was born in the U.S. but lived in Canada for quite a few years. According to The Los Angeles Times, she was born in Oakland, California. As CBC.ca noted, Harris began living in Montreal, Quebec as a 12-year-old. Many kids move around a lot because of their parents’ careers, and that’s exactly what happened here. The family relocated because Harris’s mom, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, became a McGill University professor. Since Harris moved back to the U.S. for college, we can guess she lived in Canada for about six years. She studied law at the University of California, Hastings after attending Howard University, which is located in Washington, D.C.
Sitcoms and movies love to joke about Canadian stereotypes and claim that everyone lives in a freezing cold climate and ends every sentence with “eh” (not that many people actually do!). We wouldn’t expect Harris to perpetuate these steoretypes, and she definitely hasn’t. But some say that she is passionate about health care policy because of what she saw when she was younger. Harris’s high school classmate, Anu Chopra Sharma, told CTV News, “I personally think universal health care is going to be her baby” as “She got to see the other side of the coin, growing up.” According to ABC News, she believes “Medicare for All” or a single-payer system is the best idea. Whether people agree with her specific plan or not, everyone can likely admit that it’s way too expensive to have a baby (and even if you have insurance, it can be a huge mess).
Unsurprisingly, Harris’s time in Canada has become fodder for the Republicans, who want to use the fact that she spent time away from the U.S. to act like she isn’t qualified to be President (nice try). The Hill reported that while speaking at Georgia State University, JD Vance said, “Kamala Harris comes to Atlanta and talks with a fake Southern accent, even though she grew up in Canada, you can’t make it up, that’s pretty weird.” He then said she “grew up in Vancouver” so now we know he can’t tell the difference between two completely different Canadian cities.
While Harris did live in Canada, she has spent the majority of her life in the U.S., as she is now 59 years old. Of course, Montreal residents were thrilled when Harris became VP in 2020. Since she attended Montreal’s Westmount High School, the school posted on X that they “couldn’t be more proud,” according to CBC.ca.