Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are officially the president and vice president of the United
States. The swearing-in went mostly smoothly, despite fears of protests breaking out. There
was one small unfortunate hitch, though. When Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor swore
in Harris, she mispronounced her name.
"I, Kamala Devi Harris, do solemnly swear …"
Harris simply smiled and continued with the ceremony, although people on social media
were quick to point out the mistake. One person tweeted,
"Is it being picky to have expected Sonia Sotomayor to pronounce Kamala Harris' first
name the same way she says it?"
Another posted,
"I have never related to Kamala more than in this moment, when she is having the most
important meeting of her life, and her colleague pronounced her name wrong."
Like Harris herself, many social media users refused to let the hiccup put a damper on
the day. One user wrote,
"Not even a mispronunciation can stop me from sobbing."
While another tweeted,
"To all those who refused to say Kamala Harris' name correctly, it's cool. Madam Vice President
will do after today."
The vice president's first name has been mispronounced so often, in fact, that it made the U.S. Captioning
Company's list of most mispronounced names last year, according to the Associated Press.
Harris is so used to dealing with the mispronunciation that she even wrote about how to pronounce
her name and what it means in the preface of her memoir The Truths We Hold: An American
Journey. She wrote,
"First, my name is pronounced 'comma-la,' like the punctuation mark. It means 'lotus
flower,' which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture. A lotus grows underwater,
its flower rising above the surface while its roots are planted firmly in the river
bottom."
Sotomayor herself knows what it's like to have a name that is constantly being mispronounced.
When she was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009, people struggled to pronounce her
Spanish last name. Outlets quickly rushed to publish pronunciation guides to help out,
with the Wall Street Journal noting that her name had been pronounced several different
ways by media personalities.
Some people even criticized Sotomayor for sticking with the Spanish pronunciation of
her name instead of making it easier for non-Spanish speakers to pronounce. This inspired a backlash,
with the magazine Latina pointing out why saying names properly is such a big deal,
writing,
"Our names are a fundamental part of our identities. We have the right to have them correctly pronounced."
Mistake aside, a lot of people were moved by the significance of Sotomayor swearing
in Harris. Both are women of color in positions of power that, historically, have been dominated
by white men.
Senator Amy Klobuchar summed up the impact of that moment in a tweet, writing,
"[Kamala Harris] the first African American, Asian American, and woman to become Vice President,
is sworn in by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina on the Supreme Court. This is
what breaking the glass ceiling looks like."
Harris has spoken about her admiration for Sotomayor in the past. In a tweet in September
2019, Harris paid tribute to the Supreme Court Justice, writing,
"Judge Sonia Sotomayor has fought for the voices of the people ever since her first
case voting against corporations in Citizens United. As a critical voice on the bench,
she's showing all our children what's possible."
While the mispronunciation of Harris' name at such an important moment was unfortunate,
it was a busy day for the vice president and she probably didn't give the incident too
much thought. She spoke to NPR ahead of Inauguration Day and revealed what she would be focusing
on as she was being sworn in, telling the outlet, in part,
"I will be thinking about my mother, who is looking down from heaven. I will be thinking
about all of the people who are counting on us to lead and are counting on us to see them
and to address their needs and the things that keep them up at night. And I'll be thinking
about the fact that we have to hit the ground running immediately to support the people
of our country."
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