Kamala Harris has made history as the first Black woman elected vice president of the United States, shattering barriers that have kept men — almost all of them white — entrenched at the highest levels of American politics for more than two centuries.

The 56-year-old California senator is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency.

She represents the multiculturalism that defines America, but is largely absent from Washington’s power centers.

Her Black identity has allowed her to speak in personal terms in a year of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism.