Kamala Harris's Niece Wrote a Children's Book About Her (2025)

Family is important to Vice President Kamala Harris, and as she runs for president, her relatives—including her niece Meena Harris—are there to support her.

Growing up in the Harris family, Meena was raised by woman—her mom, Maya, her aunt Kamala, and her grandmother Shyamala. "Everything I do is because of [my family], three awesome and strong women who dedicated themselves to making positive changes in the world," she said in an interview in 2020. "I have the examples of my mom and aunt, who were public interest lawyers. I was taught the value of everyday activism and showing up by my grandma, who wasn't a public official, but was a breast cancer researcher and would mentor students of color in her lab at UC Berkley. She taught me when I was 4 years old what the word boycott meant."

Here, get to know Kamala Harris's niece Meena Harris:

Meena is the daughter of Kamala's sister Maya Harris.

Meena was born Meenakshi Ashley Harris on October 20, 1984. "I had a 17-year-old single mom," Meena said. "So I got to see her go to law school. I got to see her go through her first law firm job. And same [with] Kamala. I saw so much of my mother and my aunt, and them becoming powerful women in the world starting in their 20s. I had a front-row seat for all of it." In another interview, she said, "My mom—she was a teenage single mom, gave me an incredible life, and accomplished so much. Now that I’m a mother, I seriously don’t know how she did it."

Meena grew up in Oakland, and attended Bishop O'Dowd High School. "My family never coddled me into thinking that my life was going to be rah-rah girl power," Meena said. "It was like, 'You're strong, you're powerful,' and building me up, but also conveying to me the reality, 'You're going to have to work twice as hard. Nothing's going to come without a fight. Nothing's going to be handed to you. Nothing's going to be easy.'"

She introduced her mom, Maya, to her dad, Tony West.

In 1998, Maya married Tony West (Meena calls him as her father). The two were classmates at Stanford Law, but didn't start dating until after they graduated.

Meena was responsible for them getting together; she was just four years old when her mom started law school, and she got West to play a game of hide-and-seek with her on the first day of classes. "We waited for the most inconvenient time to actually get together—he was in D.C. and I was in the Bay Area," Maya told Stanford Lawyer. "It’s a family joke that Meena knew we should be together long before we did."

She went to Harvard Law School.

Meena graduated from Stanford in 2006, and in 2012, she received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. On attending Harvard, she said, "There’s a certain intensity on the East Coast that was new for me, but it’s something I really came to love: the intellectual rigor of being in a place like Harvard Law School, a shared sense of work ethic—maybe over-work ethic. Maybe I appreciate it a little bit more after the fact, but it was really formative for me. That’s not to say we’re not hardworking in California. It just has a different vibe."

Meena worked as a lawyer.

According to her LinkedIn, after graduation, she clerked on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. After, she was an attorney specializing in data privacy and cybersecurity at Covington & Burling LLP in D.C., then worked at Slack as a Senior Policy Manager. She was then Head of Strategy and Leadership at Uber for three years, from 2017 to 2020.

Meena currently sits on the board of the National Women's Law center. According to her bio, "Meena’s legal expertise is in the areas of cybersecurity, data privacy, and consumer protection. She’s also held leadership positions in early-stage startups as an operator and policy advisor at top tech companies like Meta, Slack, and Uber."

However, she realized that a career in law was maybe not right for her. “When Aunt Kamala and mom were young and would come home from school complaining about something they felt was unfair, my grandma would reply, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it? Don’t sit around and complain about things, do something,’” Meena told NBC News. "Aunt Kamala always emphasized this lesson to me by urging me to make my own unique contributions to issues I care about. Sure, she’s always encouraged me to run for office, but she never pressured me, and she also let me know that I could make an impact in other ways."

She wrote a children's book, Kamala and Maya's Big Idea.

Kamala and Maya's Big Idea is inspired by a true story in Kamala and Maya's childhood, when they got their community to turn their empty apartment courtyard into a beautiful playground.

"This started in 2018 as a personal project to honor my grandmother, and was inspired by a story she used to tell me growing up," Meena wrote on Instagram. "At the time I never imagined writing more children’s books. I’m so grateful for the profound influence my grandma had on me, and all of the ways in which she continues to inspire my work and sense of purpose. I’m also thankful to all of you for supporting me in this new creative path of becoming an author. It’s one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever done, and I feel incredibly lucky."

Since publishing Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, she's written three other children's books: Ambitious Girl,A is for Ambitious, and The Truth About Mrs. Claus.

Meena married Nikolas Ajagu in 2014.

Meena and Nikolas met when they were both working at Facebook, and according to anniversary posts, they tied the knot in 2014.

Meena and Nikolas have two daughters.

Meena is a mom of two daughter: Amara (b. 2016) and Leela (b. 2018). "They are both incredibly strong-willed and independent but also are so loving," Meena said in an interview in 2019. "The older one is more serious, and loves books, but she also has a great sense of humor. The younger one is very playful, smiles constantly, and tickling her elicits the most delicious giggles."

She is a theater producer.

She's co-produced three Broadway shows: Suffs, Death of a Salesman, and A Strange Loop.

Meena founded the Phenomenal Women Action Campaign.

Phenomenal, which began as a t-shirt that fundraised for progressive causes, is inspired by Maya Angelou’s "Phenomenal Woman" poem. "For someone who had not previously engaged in politics, the small act of buying a $35 T-shirt, knowing it benefits women’s organizations, and perhaps posting it on Twitter or Instagram and talking about women’s equality, is an act of activism," Meena said in an interview. "In this era of purity tests and litmus tests of whether or not somebody qualifies as 'woke,' so to speak, or as an activist, we should be encouraging every single form of it."

Phenomenal Media is now a company that "elevates the stories of women and underrepresented communities through entertainment, digital content, brand partnerships, book clubs, and more."

She's very active on social media.

She Instagrams @meena, and her feed is full of sweet family shots, like this one of her daughter and Kamala right after the 2020 election: