The United States' Democratic Party's Indian-American vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said that her late mother would have been "extremely proud" of her historic nomination and told her to go ahead and "beat Trump".
Harris, 55, is the first-ever black, African American and a person of Indian descent to be nominated as the vice-presidential nominee by a major political party in the United States. Democratic Party's presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden along with Harris are challenging President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence from the Republican Party.
Remembering her mother Shyamala Gopalan, who was born in Chennai and immigrated to the US to attend a doctoral programme at UC Berkeley, Harris in an interview with CNN said, "I think she'd be really, extremely proud. And she would say, beat Trump."
"She raised us to live a life of service. And she would look at the suffering right now, she would look at the denial of science right now and it would piss her off, excuse my language," Harris said of her mother, who was a breast cancer researcher and died of cancer in 2009.
Harris also opened up about her family, including her relationship with her husband, her step-children, and her late mother.
Harris has two step-children, Cole and Ella, with her husband, Doug Emhoff. Her father Donald Harris, a retired professor of Stanford University, immigrated to the US from Jamaica to study economics.
"My mother was a scientist. She had two goals in her life, to raise her two daughters and end breast cancer. She was one of – all five feet of her, one of the strongest, most loving, and toughest people you have ever met.
Asked if her mother would be surprised that her daughter was the first woman of colour on a ticket, she said: "I don't think – I don't think she would. I think she would be immensely proud".
"But she always encouraged us to go for it. She encouraged me to never listen to no, except if she said it, you know?" Harris said.