MIAMI _ Kamala Harris, the U.S. senator picked this week as the running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, stands to become a number of "firsts" if the duo win the November presidential election: The first woman vice president. The first Black vice president. The first Asian-American vice president.
But there's one more historic possibility. If the Biden-Harris ticket wins this November, Harris, a first-generation American born to a mother from India and father from Jamaica, would also be the first vice president of Caribbean descent _ a fact not lost on hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the nation's largest swing state.
"The people I've spoken to, especially Jamaican immigrants, they're very, very proud, very excited, not just as Caribbean immigrants, but also just as immigrants. They feel she's the Shirley Chisholm of 2020 for the Caribbean immigrant community," said Guyana-born media entrepreneur Felicia Persaud, referencing the former congresswoman who in 1972, as the daughter of a Guyanese father and mother from Barbados, became the first Black woman to seek a major party's nomination for president.
Formally announced Wednesday when Biden appeared in Delaware with his vice presidential pick for the first time, Harris' place on the Democratic ticket is drawing praise from Florida's Black community _ an important segment of the Democratic electorate in the state. The Biden campaign has also announced that Harris' chief of staff is Karine Jean-Pierre, a well-known Haitian-American political organizer.
Jamaican and Haitian immigrants make up a substantial portion of South Florida's Black community, with about 350,000 living in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the U.S. Census. In total, about 17% of Florida's population is Black, according to the Census, and about 800,000 people of Caribbean descent live in the state, though the number is likely higher because of immigration patterns and now-outdated census-taking methods.
In deep-blue Broward County, where Black voters comprise nearly 40% of the Democratic Party, the Caribbean community is especially large and influential at the ballot box _ something Democratic operatives noted when Harris was announced. Jamaican Americans are generally the most politically active Black Caribbean group in Broward, while in Miami-Dade County, Haitians take the lead.
"Two Florida specific reasons why the Harris pick is helpful," tweeted Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist and CEO of the pro-Biden Super PAC Unite the Country after the announcement Tuesday. "Florida has a rapidly growing Caribbean population _ and particularly in Central Florida, we have a significant (Asian-American and Pacific Islander) population. In a state as close as ours, these are important and often forgotten voting blocs."
Although they skew heavily Democratic, Caribbean-American voters have long been viewed as potential Republican supporters because of their conservative values and frustrations with the Democratic Party. In 2016, President Donald Trump, hoping to use that to his advantage, traveled to Little Haiti less than two months before the election and told Haitian-American community leaders he wanted to be their "biggest champion."
Harris, who grew up in California's Bay area, spoke Wednesday about her heritage, noting that her mother and father "came from opposite sides of the world to arrive in America. One from India and the other from Jamaica in search of a world-class education."
But she has previously answered questions about how she defines her heritage by saying she is simply "an American." She said Wednesday that it was the civil rights movement that brought her parents together, and that, when she was young, they took her along on marches "strapped tightly in my stroller."
Some of South Florida's Caribbean activists and politicians stressed Wednesday that they see Harris as being important to the entire Black community, and, more specifically, to Black women.
Lauderdale Lakes Mayor Hazelle Rogers, the Jamaican-American president of the Caribbean Democratic Caucus of Florida, spoke glowingly of Biden's decision to pick a running mate who is a woman _ even though she said she spent "all day" Wednesday listening to Caribbean radio chatter about Harris.
Yolanda Cash Jackson, a Fort Lauderdale attorney of Bahamian descent, brought up Harris' involvement with Alpha Kappa Alpha and what she said is an unprecedented organizational effort this election season by Black sororities. And Broward Mayor Dale Holness, the first Jamaican American to hold the position, said Biden's selection of Harris acknowledged that "Blacks have been in recent times the most loyal ethnic group within the Democratic Party."
Black America could play a large role in the November election. Trump's campaign has sought to win over Black voters by criticizing Democrats' economic policies and Biden's history on criminal justice, while Biden and Democratic operatives have hoped to harness the activism that exploded in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
Persaud, the Guyanese activist from Broward County, also noted that there has already been some tension within the Black community about Harris' ethnicity and race, a criticism that followed former President Barack Obama _ who had a Black father and white mother _ during his first campaign in 2008, when Biden was his running mate.
"People are quick to point out she's not really African American. She's Jamaican and Caribbean. Now, her identity is becoming front and center," said Persaud. "It's reopened that wound for some people in our community."
But others dismissed the talk as attempts from critics on the left and right to tear Harris down. Stephen Hunter Johnson, an attorney who leads the Miami-Dade County Black Affairs Advisory Board, said Harris' position on the ticket should motivate Black voters across the spectrum.
"The one thing I'm sure of in America is I don't need to prove my Blackness and she doesn't need to prove her Blackness to anybody who isn't Black," he said. "And she doesn't need to prove it to anybody who is Black."
