The Truths We Hold: An American Journey

by Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris (Read by)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Kamala Harris shares her personal story while examining the political landscape ahead of us. This is an important American tale filled with insights and inspiration.

The #1 New York Times bestseller

From Vice President Kamala Harris, one of America's most inspiring political leaders, comes a book about the core truths that unite us and how best to act upon them.

"A life story that genuinely entrances." —Los Angeles Times

“An engaging read that provides insights into the influences of [Harris’s] life...Revealing and even endearing.” —San Francisco Chronicle

The daughter of immigrants and civil rights activists, Vice President Kamala Harris was raised in an Oakland, California, community that cared deeply about social justice. As she rose to prominence as one of the political leaders of our time, her experiences would become her guiding light as she grappled with an array of complex issues and learned to bring a voice to the voiceless.

In The Truths We Hold, she reckons with the big challenges we face together. Drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values as we confront the great work of our day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984885715
Publisher:	Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,076,763
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Kamala Harris (kamalaharris.org) is the vice president of the United States of America. Before assuming the vice presidency, she served as a senator from California, worked in the Alameda County district attorney’s office, and was later elected district attorney of San Francisco and then Attorney General of California. The second Black woman and the first person of Indian descent ever elected to the U.S. Senate, and the first woman, Black person, and person of Indian descent ever to hold the office of vice president, she works hard to make sure all people have equal rights, especially kids. She’s married to Douglas Emhoff, and loves being a stepmom to Ella and Cole. You can follow Kamala Harris on Facebook at Facebook.com/KamalaHarris or on Twitter @KamalaHarris.

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction

On July 4, 1992, one of my heroes and inspirations, former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, gave a speech that deeply resonates today. “We cannot play ostrich,” he said. “Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work. . . . We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust.”
 
This book grows out of that call to action, and out of my belief that our fight must begin and end with speaking truth.
 
We cannot solve our most stubborn problems unless we are honest about what they are, unless we are willing to have difficult conversations and accept what facts make plain.
 
We need to speak truth: that there are forces of hate in this country—racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Semitism—and we need to confront them. We need to speak truth: that, with the exception of Native Americans, we all descend from people who weren’t born on our shores—whether our ancestors came to America willingly, with hopes of a prosperous future, or forcibly, on a slave ship, or desperately, to escape a painful past.
 
We need to speak truth about what it will take for all American workers to earn a living with dignity and decency. We must speak truth about who we send to jail in this country and why. We must speak truth about companies that make a profit taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us. And I intend to do just that.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

1 For the People 1

2 A Voice for Justice 39

3 Underwater 75

4 Wedding Bells 109

5 I Say We Fight 141

6 We Are Better Than This 159

7 Every Body 183

8 The Cost of Living 213

9 Smart on Security 231

10 What I've Learned 253

Acknowledgments 283

Notes 287

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

Listeners unfamiliar with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris's life and career will find this audiobook a detailed introduction. The California senator is a seasoned public figure in politics, and her voice reflects her experience and knowledge. The audiobook is a hybrid of a traditional memoir and a political text, covering Harris's days growing up, her education at Howard University, her work as a district attorney general, and her current role as a congresswoman. Listeners are provided Harris’s perspective on key issues, including the recent Supreme Court nomination hearings and immigration policy. Harris's insights into politics are likely what most listeners are seeking. Her resolve on the status of the current political climate comes through loud and clear: “We are better than this!” S.P.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2019 - AudioFile

Its most memorable moments are those personal touches: Harris’s recollections of family, friendships and, above all, of her late mother, an Indian immigrant and cancer researcher who raised Harris and her younger sister. . . . instructive for anyone trying to imagine a Vice President Harris.”
— Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post

"A life story that genuinely entrances." — Los Angeles Times 

“An engaging read that provides insights into the influences of Harris’s life.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“In an era when many of our current political memoirs are either looking back at the Obama years or are attempting to grapple with our current state of government unrest, it is exciting to see a highly respected and powerful woman of color and daughter of immigrants tell her own story and offer some hope for the future of our country.” — Bustle

From the Publisher

2019-01-25

California's junior senator limbers up "to be a joyful warrior in the battle to come."

Harris (Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer, 2009, etc.), who recently announced her candidacy for president, follows immediately with an entry in the genre that might be called the Obligatory Campaign Biography, blending how-did-we-get-here memoir with political platform. In that sense, this book is by-the-numbers, with all the expected elements. Yet the author's background is unusual enough on many scores to set her autobiography apart: She is the first American of Indian or Jamaican descent to serve in the Senate and the first African-American senator from California, having served prominently and sometimes controversially as the state's attorney general. Countering the whispering birther movement surrounding her early campaign, Harris recounts that she was born in Oakland of mixed descent, with an Indian immigrant mother who "understood very well that she was raising two black daughters" and took pains to "make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women." The author excelled in school but, she recounts in a moment of reversal, failed her first effort at the bar, overcoming defeat to take a visible role in the Bay Area legal community. Her efforts at judicial reform figure in her timely call for an overhaul of sentencing procedures, all as part of a platform of "what I see as women's issues: the economy, national security, health care, education, criminal justice reform, climate change." Harris also reveals a policy-wonk side, enthusiastically addressing issues such as cybersecurity ("a new front in a new kind of battle") and economic inequality ("with millions of Americans hanging by a thread," she deftly writes of the current president, "the White House reached for scissors"). The talking points of the book are surely those she'll be revisiting in speeches and debates to come, and suffice it to say that you can bet Jamie Dimon won't be endorsing her.

Fits well alongside such politico-aspirational books as Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father, and better written than most in the category.

Kirkus Reviews