Kamala Harris just made history by becoming the first Indian-American woman to to be elected to senate. Harris was voted in as California’s first new U.S. senator in 24 years, and the first black politician to represent the state. She’s been dubbed the female Obama, and the outgoing president helped her campaign by publicly endorsing her.
And in another incredible first, Catherine Cortez Masto has become the first Latina senator. For context on how overdue this is: there is an estimated Hispanic population of 55 million people in the US. Upon being elected as the Democratic senator for Nevada she tweeted:
'Tomorrow the fight continues.'
When they take up their roles in January in the 115th Congress, Harris and Cortez Masto will join the two other women of color in the Senate; Hawaii's Mazie Hirono, and Thai-born Tammy Duckworth, who now represents Illinois.
The US Constitution dictates that the Senate must be composed of two Senators from each state. The current Senate, which has 100 members, has gone down in history as the most diverse senate ever, but is still nowhere near being remotely representative of the US population. The Atlantic ran a storylast year, describing it as ‘one of the world’s whitest workplaces,’ after a study found that even it’s senior staff were predominantly white.
African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans make up roughly one-third of the US population. One of the most alarming figures from this study found that only 0.9% of the top staff positions in the Senate were held by African Americans.
That kind of stat just simply shouldn’t exist in any workplace, anywhere, let alone in the American Senate. Let’s hope the history-making election of Kampala Harris and Catherine Cortez Masto is the start of something better.
And in the mean time - congratulations ladies.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.