About 2,400 miles from Washington, D.C., lies the island nation of Jamaica. The Caribbean country is home to approximately 2.8 million people and a diaspora that spans the globe.

Donald Harris, father of Vice President Kamala Harris, is also part of this diaspora. The Jamaican-born economist currently lives in the same city as his daughter, the capital of the United States, but despite their closeness, answers about who Donald Harris is and his influence on who his daughter is today are best found in the United States. Through members of the Harris family who still live on the island.

Penguin Press/”The Truths We Have: An American Journey”

Donald Harris was born in Jamaica in 1938. He immigrated to the United States, became a citizen, married biologist Shyamala Gopalan, fathered two daughters, and rose to the top of academia as a professor at Stanford University.

The vice president and Donald Harris have not shared detailed information about the extent of their current relationship. The impact of the vice president’s parents divorcing when he was a child may linger for decades.

Vice President Harris frequently talks about her mother, who died in 2009, but her public comments about her father are rare.

So who is Donald Harris who taught Kamala Harris to be fearless?

Scripps News’ Jamaican-born Ava-joye Burnett returned to the country to learn more about Donald Harris and how her Jamaican roots shaped her daughter, who is now running for president.

Donald Harris’s hometown, Brown’s Town, is a market community located a few miles inland from popular tourist spots on Jamaica’s north coast.

The Harris name goes back generations in the small market town. They were so influential that the town was named after one of their families and their fame continues today.

Two of Donald Harris’ cousins, Sherman and Mark Harris, did business in town but kept a low profile even before their family name’s rise to prominence in American politics.

Sherman Harris spoke to Scripps News and shed light on who Donald Harris is and what it was like for Kamala Harris to visit Jamaica with her father during her childhood.

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“This is Kamala’s playground,” Sherman Harris said from his home overlooking the property that has been in the family for generations. “He was actually going to play on this field with his father and he loved it. With animals, cows, goats, etc. “He played and ran up and down the field.”

Donald Harris’ worldviews were shaped in Brown’s Town, where he grew up watching his grandmother run a business.

The combination of his academic genius and his family’s influence took him from Jamaica to the halls of two of the most distinguished institutions in the United States. Donald Harris received his Ph.D. He graduated from the University of California-Berkeley and eventually became a professor of economics at Stanford University.

Harris wrote about their “frequent visits to Jamaica” with their young daughters. On some occasions, the elder Harris would bring the girls to the busy market to introduce them to the surroundings.

Donald Harris often focused on education and accustoming his daughters to Jamaican culture, Mark Harris said.

“Donald believes in truly showing the true path of life and where it comes from,” said Mark Harris.

When asked what impact Kamala Harris’s summers in Jamaica had on her personality, Mark Harris said: “It introduced her to her Jamaican cultural roots, so it kind of develops what kind of person you become.”

In the 1970s, Donald and Shyamala Harris began having marital problems. Vice President Harris has talked about being raised mostly by her mother, but although she has made limited mentions of her father and her Jamaican roots, people who know the vice president say her father and his Jamaican roots helped shape the person she has become.

In her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris reminisced about her childhood and her father’s encouragement to be fearless; a lesson the vice president remembered as he ran for president.

Kamala Harris’ Jamaican relatives also addressed Donald Trump’s comments that Harris “just happened to turn black.”

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Sherman Harris said Trump’s remarks were “unintelligent.”

“Someone can’t turn black or someone can’t turn white, so I see this as a stupid conversation,” he said. “I guess he’s lost for words.”

“This is just a political point he’s trying to make to see if he can get the Black vote back… but that’s bullshit,” Mark Harris said.

Jamaica was once a Spanish and then a British colony. It gained independence in 1962, but its colonial past sets the stage for an island that is an ethnic melting pot.

Although the country is more than 90 percent Black, people of European, Middle Eastern, Chinese and Indian descent call Jamaica home and have collectively shaped Jamaica’s culture for generations.

Professor Sonjah Stanley Niaah, a senior lecturer in cultural studies at the University of the West Indies in Mona, said some Jamaicans were disturbed by Trump’s comments that Kamala Harris had “accidentally turned black”.

“At the heart of this is a kind of white privilege that needs to be named,” Niaah said. “I can understand why it might be seen as terrible and completely problematic for someone to determine that another person cannot claim to be who they want to be or how they want to show up in the world. And I think Jamaicans will be upset because it is inappropriate for anyone to establish that you cannot say who you are in this world.”

Scripps News Reports, Kamala Harris’ Jamaican Roots airs Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

For more on Donald Harris, watch the video below from one of his former students, Robert Blecker, an economics professor at American University.

One of Donald Harris’ former students reveals information about Kamala Harris’ father