05:01India: Villagers celebrate in Kamala Harris's ancestral home as she becomes new US vice president
Residents celebrated in the ancestral village of US Vice President Kamala Harris in Thulasendrapuram Painganadu, Tamil Nadu, as she was sworn into office alongside President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The new US Vice President shares a link with the village as it was the birth place of her maternal grandfather, who later moved to Chennai.
"We are doing all this not just to show our love and affection towards her. Like I said we are celebrating this occasion like winning a cricket series," said Vinoth, a local.
Vinoth also added that the fact Harris is a woman meant celebrations of the achievement in the village had been even more substantial: "I am not sure whether we would have celebrated the same way if it was a man. But she is a woman and she is from our village and became the Vice President of United States of America, so we are celebrating this moment in a bigger way."
Born in Oakland, California, Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, holding a connection to both India and Jamaica. Her mother moved to the US from Tamil Nadu in 1958, while her father arrived from British-ruled Jamaica in 1961.
05:01Residents celebrated in the ancestral village of US Vice President Kamala Harris in Thulasendrapuram Painganadu, Tamil Nadu, as she was sworn into office alongside President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The new US Vice President shares a link with the village as it was the birth place of her maternal grandfather, who later moved to Chennai.
"We are doing all this not just to show our love and affection towards her. Like I said we are celebrating this occasion like winning a cricket series," said Vinoth, a local.
Vinoth also added that the fact Harris is a woman meant celebrations of the achievement in the village had been even more substantial: "I am not sure whether we would have celebrated the same way if it was a man. But she is a woman and she is from our village and became the Vice President of United States of America, so we are celebrating this moment in a bigger way."
Born in Oakland, California, Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, holding a connection to both India and Jamaica. Her mother moved to the US from Tamil Nadu in 1958, while her father arrived from British-ruled Jamaica in 1961.