July 30, 2024 — Dr. Vishakha N. Desai, President Emerita of Asia Society, Former Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University considers how a Southern Indian saying reflects the VP's background and values that have shaped her in this oped, originally published by Nikkei.

I have been amused to see the social media explosion of the coconut tree meme when it became clear that Kamala Devi Harris has likely to be the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic party. Not being a regular consumer of all parts of social media, especially forms that produce memes at lightning speed, I must admit, I learned about this phenomenon that has now become iconic from television and print journalists. As I heard the authors and commentators opine, I was struck by the fact that there was no mention of the specific cultural context of the expression.

The meme was originally used by Republican opponents with the intention of casting Kamala in a negative light, but it has since switched sides to become a kind of symbol of her campaign. As I watched the original clip of Vice President Harris at a White House Ceremony in May 2023, referring to the expression her mother Shyamala Gopalan used: “Do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” I immediately thought of its very specific south Indian context. 

Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris, born and raised in Chennai (formerly Madras), was a product of South Indian Tamil culture. Unlike western part of India, where I grew up, coconut trees are a ubiquitous presence in Southern and other coastal regions of India. When the coconut falls from the tree, its relatively hard surface protecting the smooth, delicate, and creamy white skin inside, it gives the impression of being an entirely independent object. So, when Shyamala said to her daughter Kamala that she wasn’t like a coconut, it was to suggest that despite the apparently autonomous appearance of coconut, we must not forget that the fruit has a context. It actually comes from a tree that may look very separate, but each cannot exist without the other. In a way, it is similar to the western expression, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” which also suggests that one is a product of one’s upbringing. 

The difference is that the Indian expression is less direct. The implication is that even though a fallen coconut fruit looks completely independent of any connection to its origin, like the coconut fruit, we humans are also products of our contextual connections. The discussion of the coconut meme without any reference to its Indian context is not unlike the visible absence of much discussion of the strong influence of Shyamala Gopalan had on her daughter.

Kamala Harris spoke warmly and deeply about her mother and her connections to her Indian heritage in her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. She writes, “my mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles instilled us with pride in our South Asian heritage….Our classical Indian names harked back to our heritage, and we were raised with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture.” 

We know that Shyamala Gopalan came from a distinguished and educated Tamil family steeped in the Indian independence struggle with progressive social values. It was highly exceptional in the 1950s for a young Indian woman to come to America at the age of 20 for graduate work and earn her Ph.D. at the age of 25. The fact that it was long before the onslaught of Indian graduate students in the era of post-1965 immigration reform, demonstrates the socially liberal values of her family that were embedded in the Indian independence movement. It is to her mother’s credit that Kamala Harris was also steeped in the civil rights movement from her days as a toddler in Oakland. And it is because of Shyamala Gopalan and her deep understanding of the American culture of the 1960s that Kamala embraced her identity as a black woman in America and solidified that connection by attending Howard University, a preeminent HBCU institution.

Kamala Harris is a product of two of the most powerful twentieth-century stories, one that changed the social and political trajectory of India and the other that gave rise to the civil rights movement in America, with inspiration from India. While most writers emphasize her association with black culture with a cursory mention of her Indian heritage, it would behoove us to also emphasize the values she received from her Indian immigrant mother. She embodies the values of a just society that were central to both Indian Independence movement and the civil rights movement in the U.S. Indeed, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and, as suugested by Shyamala Gopalan, people are really as independent as coconuts fallen from the tree appear to be. Now, it is time to celebrate the human values that come from the multicultural heritage of Kamala Harris because that is a true “only in America” story.

Dr. Vishakha N. Desai is the former Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University and a former Senior Research Scholar for the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. From 2004 through 2012, Dr. Desai served as President and CEO of the Asia Society. Under her leadership the society expanded the scope and scale of its activities with the opening of new offices in India and Korea, a new center of U.S.-China Relations, internationally recognized education programs, and inauguration of two new architecturally distinguished facilities in Hong Kong and Houston