New Haven Catches Kamala’s Wave

New Haveners descended on the Hill Friday to catch a passing glimpse of Vice President Kamala Harris — whose afternoon visit spread a wave of pride, hope, and history.

Harris is the country’s first Black, female, and Asian-American vice president.

She spent roughly an hour and a half at the Boys & Girls Club on Columbus Avenue as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ​“Help Is Here” national tour, touting the impact of the recently passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

Although her roundtable discussion about childcare with various state and political figures was closed to the public and almost all of the press, roughly 150 people still made the trek to Howard Avenue and Columbus Avenue.

In interview after interview after interview with the Independent, New Haveners from the Hill, Beaver Hills, City Point, Newhallville, Westville, and elsewhere said that they took the afternoon off to stand in the sun 200 feet away from where Harris sat because of the pride they felt at having the nation’s second-in-command visit the city.

For the Black women who came out to stand at the Columbus-Howard street corner, Harris’s visit was particularly poignant as a marker of the many ceilings the vice president had broken through to achieve her current position of prominence.

“It feels extremely special to be graced with her presence,” said Dannah Facey (pictured), an internal medicine doctor who lives in the Hill. ​“I hope she sees we’re all rooting for her. We know she knows what’s right.”

“I think it’s historic,” said Jamila Thompson (pictured), a Hill native who drove down from her current home in North Haven with her four young children: Gene, Dominique, Layla, and Mansil.

At a time of great suffering during the pandemic, which has hit working-class communities of color like the Hill particularly hard, ​“they need something to give them hope.”

Harris’s visit — along with the American Rescue Plan’s $1.9 trillion in federal aid for childcare, unemployment, direct payments, and more — provided exactly that.

“We feel privileged, honored,” said Kashonda Lawrence (pictured in Superwoman costume), a teacher at the LULAC Head Start childcare program on Cedar Street in the Hill.

When asked what she hopes Harris takes away from her visit to New Haven, and from her visit to a storied afterschool program for youth like the Boys & Girls Club, Lawrence said, ​“The best thing for her to take away is how important we are to the community, how important childcare is for the community” — especially when so many people have lost their jobs and physical school buildings remained shuttered for months as public school learning took place online.

“It’s kind of stressful for a lot of us teens being remote all the time,” said 16-year-old Beaver Hills resident and Hillhouse High School student Jadyn Brown, who showed up to try to see the vice president with her mom, Angela (both pictured).

Brown said she’s not sure if she’ll be returning to the classroom in person when local high schools make that option available in early April.

If she had a chance to talk with the vice president, Brown said, she would let her know that, even though times have been tough, especially for young people, and especially in New Haven, ​“A lot of us can adjust. A lot of us did adjust.”

“There’s a lot of diversity in our city,” she said. ​“It’s great to see all the people here together.”

Local salsa instructor and craft brewer Alisa Bowens said she feels a unique connection to Harris as fellow ​“firsts of the firsts,” with Harris being the first Black female vice president, and Bowens being the first Black female craft brewer in Connecticut.

“She’s such an inspiration,” Bowens said. If she could have one word with Harris during her New Haven visit? Bowens said she’d say, ​“You go, girl.”

Newhallville Community Management Team Chair Kim Harris, traveling alongside Newhallville teens Aneissa Beam and Spirite Watson (all pictured) as part of Harris’s Newhallville Kids TV program, turned to the name of the vice president’s tour when asked how she felt knowing that Kamala Harris was in our city.

“She’s bringing that excitement. Help is here,” Kim Harris said. With all of the aid included in the American Rescue Plan, and especially with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s successfully championed boost to the child tax credit, ​“We really have a chance to live better.”

Speaking Jamaican Patois With The VP

At least one New Havener got to meet Harris during her Friday afternoon visit.

Georgia Goldburn, executive director of the childcare center Hope for New Haven and a community-wide organizer of childcare providers, got to meet Harris briefly during her stop at the West Haven Child Development Center, which she visited after the roundtable at the Boys & Girls Club in New Haven.

Alongside federal Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, Gov. Ned Lamont, U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, and other state and local officials, Harris toured the childcare facility and visited a classroom with children before giving a speech about the American Rescue Plan’s $50 billion for childcare.

She also met briefly and took pictures with some local childcare providers, like Goldburn.

“I got a chance to speak with her in patois. And she spoke back to me in patois,” Goldburn said with a laugh during a phone interview after the meet-up. She said she asked the vice president, ​“Waa gwaan?” which is Jamaican Patois for ​“What’s going on?” Harris, whose father is Jamaican, responded gamely with, ​“Waa gwaan.”

“It was really good. I was waiting to criticize her patois game,” Goldburn said. ​“Honestly, her game was tight.”

“Giant Leaps” For Children & Families

When asked about how she felt, as a local childcare provider, to have the vice president of the United States visit New Haven and West Haven specifically to talk about the importance of funding services for young children, Goldburn paused.

“It is a very heavy feeling to participate in this event,” she said. It meant a lot, ​“as a childcare provider, to hear the people at the highest level of government coming and saying that we matter, and that our efforts, our contributions, should be recognized, should be honored, not just through words, but honored through actions.”

“Just to be in a space where your life’s work is being recognized, to have them saying, ​‘thank you,’ and, ​‘we want to make sure that we honor you going forward by making investments in you as a professional, in you as an essential infrastructure,’” she added, ​“that was really wonderful to hear coming out of the mouths of the people at the highest levels of government.”

Goldburn also reflected on how Harris referred to the American Rescue Plan’s $50 billion for childcare as ​“a beginning step,” saying and ​“we have to start taking giant leaps rather than incremental steps for children and families.”

“That was really uplifting to hear,” Goldburn said. ​“We always felt like we were in the shadow of the education system, seen but never heard, and sometimes barely seen. It’s really good to have the opportunity today” to hear someone as high up in U.S. government as Kamala Harris affirm, and promise to support, childcare professionals like herself.

Click on the videos below to watch the arrival and departure of Harris’s motorcade in the Hill Friday afternoon.