The US presidential nominee Joe Biden has chosen Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris has become the first Black woman and the first woman of Asian descent to be appointed as the vice-president candidate.

The 55-year-old California senator is the third woman to be selected as the vice president candidate on a major party ticket. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and New York Representative Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 were the other two.

Harris, who was in the race to White House, ended her presidential campaign by the end of 2019, citing lack of financial resources to continue her campaign. The California senator is one of the three Asian Americans in the Senate and she’s the first Indian-American ever to serve in the chamber.

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Known for many firsts, Harris will become the first-ever woman vice-president of the United States, if elected.

She has been a county district attorney; the district attorney for San Francisco – the first woman and first African-American and Indian-origin to be elected to the position.

If elected, she would add a few more ‘firsts’ to her name. She would become the first African-American woman, the first Indian-American and the first Asian-American to serve as the vice-president.

Kamala Harris: The trailblazer who went from Joe Biden’s rival to running mate

Born to a Black father and an Indian mother, Kamala is proud of her multi-cultural roots. Her father, Donald Harris, was from Jamaica, and her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist from Chennai. She, however, defines herself simply as ‘American’.

In 2003, she became the top prosecutor of San Francisco, before being elected the first woman and the first black person to serve as California’s attorney general in 2010.