About 1,400 miles from Washington, D.C., lies the island nation of Jamaica. This Caribbean country is home to approximately 2.8 million people and a diaspora that spans the entire planet.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ father, Donald Harris, is part of this diaspora. The Jamaican-born economist now lives in the same city as his daughter, the capital of the United States, but despite their proximity, it is best to find answers about who Donald Harris is and his influence on who his daughter is today today. via members of the Harris family who still live on the island.

Penguin Press/“The Truths We Hold: An American Journey”

Donald Harris was born in Jamaica in 1938. He emigrated to the United States, became a citizen, married biologist Shyamala Gopalan, had two daughters, and rose to the top of academia as a professor at Stanford University .

The vice president and Donald Harris have not shared details about the extent of their current relationship. The impact of the vice president’s parents’ divorce when she was a child perhaps continues to linger through the decades.

Vice President Harris speaks frequently about her mother, who died in 2009, but her public remarks about her father are rare.

So who is Donald Harris, the man who taught Kamala Harris not to be afraid?

Jamaica-born Ava-joye Burnett of Scripps News returned to the country to learn more about Donald Harris and how his Jamaican roots shaped his daughter, who is now running for president.

Brown’s Town, the birthplace of Donald Harris, is a merchant community located a few miles inland from the popular tourist spots on Jamaica’s north coast.

The Harris name goes back several generations in the small town. They are so influential that the town is named after one of their family members and their importance continues to this day.

Two of Donald Harris’ cousins, Sherman and Mark Harris, run businesses in the city, but even before the rise of their family name in American politics, they kept a low profile.

Sherman Harris spoke with Scripps News and shed some light on who Donald Harris is and what it was like when Kamala Harris visited Jamaica with her father as a child.

RELATED STORY | Watch Kamala Harris’ historic DNC speech; here are the highlights

“This is Kamala’s playground,” Sherman Harris said from his home overlooking the property that has been in the family for generations. “She actually played on that field with her dad and she loved it. She played with the animals, cows, goats, etc., and ran up and down the property.

Donald Harris’ worldview was formed in Brown’s Town, where he grew up watching his grandmother run a business.

The combination of his academic talent and his family’s influence took him from Jamaica to the halls of two of the most elite institutions in the United States. Donald Harris earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and eventually became a professor of economics at Stanford University.

Harris wrote of “frequent visits to Jamaica” with his young daughters. In some cases, the elder Harris took the girls to the bustling market to expose them to the environment.

Mark Harris said Donald Harris often focused on educating and immersing his daughters in Jamaican culture.

“Donald believes in really showing the true way of life and where it comes from,” Mark Harris said.

When asked what impact Kamala Harris’ summers in Jamaica had on who she became, Mark Harris replied: “It exposed her to Jamaican cultural roots, so you know, it kind of enhances the genre of the person you become.”

In the 1970s, Donald and Shyamala Harris began having marital problems. Vice President Harris has said she was raised primarily by her mother, but despite her limited mentions of her father and his Jamaican roots, people who know the vice president say her father and his Jamaican roots helped shape the person she has become.

In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris recalled her childhood and her father’s encouragement to not be afraid, a lesson the vice president remembers as she runs for president.

Kamala Harris’ Jamaican relatives also responded to Donald Trump’s comments that Harris “went black.”

RELATED STORY | Trump wrongly questions whether Harris is black during panel with black journalists

Sherman Harris said Trump’s remarks were “unintelligent.”

“Someone can’t become black or someone can’t become white, so I think it’s stupid talk, you know,” he said. “I think he’s short on words.”

“It’s just a political argument that he’s trying to make to try to see if he could win back black votes…but it’s absurd,” Mark Harris said.

Jamaica was once a Spanish colony, then a British colony. It gained independence in 1962, but its colonial past sets the stage for an island that is an ethnic melting pot.

Although the country is more than 90% Black, people of European, Middle Eastern, Chinese and Indian descent have called Jamaica home and have collectively shaped Jamaican culture for generations.

Professor Sonjah Stanley Niaah, a lecturer in cultural studies at the University of the West Indies in Mona, said some Jamaicans were offended by Trump’s comments that Kamala Harris “had gone black”.

“At the heart of all of this is a certain type of white privilege that should be named for what it is,” Niaah said. “I can understand why it would be considered egregious, completely problematic, for someone to determine that another cannot claim who they want to be or how they want to be seen in the world. And I think Jamaicans would be upset because it’s unacceptable for anyone to determine that you can’t say who you are to the world. »

Scripps News Reports, Jamaican Roots by Kamala Harris airs Saturday at 8 p.m.

To learn more about Donald Harris, watch the video below from one of his former students, Robert Blecker, an economics professor at American University.

One of Donald Harris’ Former Students Gives Insight into Kamala Harris’ Father