For many daughters of immigrants, VP-elect Kamala Harris represents hope

• Kamala Harris is the first Black and Asian American woman to be elected vice president.
• Harris is a daughter of immigrants. In her victory speech, Harris thanked her mom, who immigrated to the US from India.
• Americans whose parents immigrated to the US told Insider what Harris' historic election means to them.

"When she came here from India at the age of 19, she maybe didn't quite imagine this moment, but she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible," Kamala Harris said during her victory speech last Saturday after she made history as the first Black and Asian American woman to be elected vice president.

Tricia Ebarvia, 44, watched this speech from the suburbs of Philadelphia. She told Insider she and her brother have called Pennsylvania home since birth, but her parents came from the Philippines in the 1970s. Her mom, who worked as a chemist in the US before she retired, was "strong-willed" and always echoed a can-do attitude.

"I felt very proud to see a woman of color elected to the second-highest office in the land," she said. "I felt proud as a daughter of immigrants, as well. I think that seeing a woman of color who is also someone who is proud and stays in touch with her cultural heritage is something that can speak to a lot of Americans."

"Her story about her mother and about all the things that her mother did for her growing up and her encouragement— those all resonated with me also personally," she added.

Kamala Harris, daughter of immigrants

Harris is the daughter of the late Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who immigrated to the US from India during the 1960s. Her father, Donald Harris, was an immigrant from Jamaica.

The VP-elect thanked her mother during her Saturday night victory speech: "To the woman most responsible for my presence here today, my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, who is always in our hearts."

Giovanna Lastra, 26, of Dallas, said she was watching the victory speech with her dad, who immigrated from Mexico to the US. For her, watching the speech made her feel very "grateful" and "hopeful."

When Harris named her mother in her victory speech, Lastra said it gave her a sense that one day she would want to do the same for her family one day.

"[For] someone who comes from immigrant parents, there is this sense that as you enter the world you carry your ancestors with you, and I saw that in Kamala when she named her mother," Lastra told Insider.

For Lastra, the fact that Harris is a woman is particularly important because it confirmed both "a woman and a man can carry forth the culture and carry their ancestors on their back to high positions like the vice president."

Her dad cried during the speech, she said. During the Trump presidency, her father had expressed pain from seeing "people who looked like him" being treated poorly, she said. In public, President Donald Trump verbally attacked Mexican immigrants by calling them "rapists" and he's been reported to mock them in private, as well.

Resembling the 'multicultural, multiracial' American family

First-generation immigrants account for 13.7% of the US population, and second-generation immigrants, like Harris, account for 12%, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center report.

Julie Greene, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, said the children of immigrants "are poised to have an even more profound impact" than their first-generation immigrant parents because they often have more social capital and cultural and political resources growing up in the US.

"[Harris] is just the tip of a major political shift in this country as the second-generation comes of age," Greene told Insider.

Harris embodies "these larger trends in the United States as we increasingly become a multicultural, multiracial society," Jennifer Mendez, a professor of sociology at the College of William and Mary, told Insider.

The ways Harris' identities "overlap and intersect" reflects the experience of "a growing number of Americans," Mendez said.

"Is she a Black woman? Is she the daughter of an Indian immigrant? She's both," she said.

A hopeful message for future generations

Ebarvia said she doesn't believe the American Dream is available to everyone, because too many systemic barriers prevent achievement from being an equal opportunity. But she said Harris' election gave her hope for "what is possible."

Now a mother of two teenaged boys and one 10-year-old, Ebarvia focuses on raising her children to be good people who can have a family they can support, and one that will support them back, she said. Harris signals a sense of hope for her, and sets a good role model for her boys to recognize female leadership as "an accomplishment."

"It made me feel like perhaps for the first time the government included and had a place for people of color and women of color," Ebarvia said.

Jenny Li Fowler, 46, said she arrived in the US when her mom "carried" her as a baby on the plane when her parents immigrated to the US from Seoul. Fowler and her parents became naturalized American citizens and she currently resides in Massachusetts. For her, too, Harris' victory was a sign of hope.

"It makes me believe in the country again," she said.

Fowler is a mother to a 7-year-old daughter, and said Harris sets an example for her world.

"When my daughter sees that a woman is the vice-president of the country, a woman [whose] mom was an immigrant as well, a person of color, 100% that makes her think, 'Well that's possible, that could be me'," she said. "That's it. That means everything."

• Read more:
• Kamala Harris makes history as the first female, Black, and Asian American vice president-elect
• Vice President-elect Kamala Harris comes from a family of lawyers and Stanford graduates. Meet the family.
• Sales of Kamala Harris books boomed after she was declared vice president-elect, as Americans sought to educate themselves — and their children — about her
• Kamala Harris' Indian ancestral village celebrates her victory as she becomes Vice President of the United States