Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California Riverside and founder of AAPI Data, suggested earlier this year that one of the reasons Harris might be more commonly portrayed as Black in the media is because of AmericaвЂ™s history of using the вЂњone-drop rule,вЂќ a racist practice that dates back to slavery. But her victory that day also represented another milestone that some of those same news outlets did not mention: She was also the first South Asian American person elected to the Senate. When Harris won her Senate seat in 2016, news coverage repeatedly highlighted that she was only the second Black woman elected to the Senate (the first was Carol Moseley Braun, in 1992). Media coverage has long focused on HarrisвЂ™s Black identity, and discrimination against Black people plays a role in that And what the energy expended on debating HarrisвЂ™s identity tells us is that we still have a long way to go when it comes to talking about multiracial people in America. HereвЂ™s what comes next.ДЇor multiracial people, defining their racial identity in America can be a complex and fraught issue because of other peopleвЂ™s assumptions and expectations. Kamala Harris makes history as the first woman to become vice president Joe Biden has won. Meanwhile, some Black voters debated whether she is truly вЂњBlack enough,вЂќ and far-right critics pushed birther-style arguments, questioning whether Harris is a US citizen and her eligibility for vice president. While some South Asian voters were upset that this part of her identity has long been downplayed, others were excited about the historic nature of her nomination and what it represents for South Asian American women and women of color. When Harris was nominated in August, her biracial identity prompted much discussion on social and traditional media about her background as the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father. In her new role, Harris will break many barriers of her own: She is the first woman, first Black person, and first person of South Asian descent to become the vice president of the United States.Д«ut such boundary-breaking is never without strife. The swearing-in of Kamala Harris as vice president of the United States was a historic moment that celebrated other historic firsts: The first Latinx Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, did the honors as HarrisвЂ™s hand rested on the Bible that belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice.

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