I found this wonderful article which followed the Democratic VP candidate, Kamala Harris's mother's achievements and spoke more about the contribution of immigrant women especially from India to Western countries.
It indeed made me very proud to read about Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, Harris's mother. She hailed from my State in India, Tamil Nadu and we also seem to have chosen similar fields of study and the very same area of research albeit in different decades. Dr. Gopalan's parents later settled in my city of Chennai following their retirement, pretty much in the same area I hail from! Other than these superficial reasons, there is so much more to be proud of though.
In fact to better understand both Kamala Harris's and Dr. Gopalan's trailblazing lives, we might need to go one generation back and look at Dr. Gopalan's parents. We are talking about the 1940s and 50s when they have been so broad and open minded, looked to educate their son and daughters equally and in fact were not happy with Dr. Gopalan's first choice of education in Home Science as they were ambitious for their daughters. They wanted them to shine as doctors, engineers or scientists rather than learn just good home science, no offence to the subject at all. It goes on to show from where Dr. Gopalan gained her brains and confidence from. Did they think women were not suited for careers and need to be married off at an early age in order to procreate and be good wives and mothers? No, this does not seem to have featured in their discussions at all!
Later their daughter Shyamala decided to apply to the US and got admitted to Graduate school. It never occurred to them to stop her from travelling so far alone to study. In fact they used their retirement funds to partly fund her first semester of study and housing. Shymala then went on to complete her PhD and continued her important work and career until her last days. What a contribution to society!
Not only professionally, but personally she had joined the Black Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and that's how she met her future husband, not an Indian but a Jamaican. She felt confident in her decision and of her parents acceptance of her decision to go ahead with the marriage. She had two daughters from the marriage and brought them up with so much panache by of course following her role model parents. She was comfortable enough to also divorce and end the marriage when finally it did not work and had no need to worry about society and the 'shame' and stigma that divorce still carries in many parts of the world including India. She retained her maiden name till her death in 2009. Hats off to you mam, Dr. Gopalan, for being such an inspiration for us women everywhere. We are very proud of all your achievements, personal and professional.
The article in the link I shared above focusses on immigrant women and how their contribution is overlooked. It also touches upon how generally immigrant women tend to be more productive than native women and I believe it is very true. Especially Indian women who reach American shores for an education. A good percentage of us have carved our own paths and owned our chosen careers. A word of request for the Middle East countries - please take note. Most migrant women work here and yet the sponsorship rules tie our lives here with our husband or father who are our 'Sponsors'. We need a 'No objection certificate' from them to work anywhere and I don't think there could be anything more insulting than this for a woman. Please also see the potential misuse possible here. Hope things will change soon. Till then I hope.
You all go girls, keep rocking until changes become inevitable!
