This article examines Kamala Harris’ 2020–2024 presidential trajectory as a site where multiracial, diasporic identity confronts white supremacist nostalgia in contemporary US politics. Its central thesis argues that Harris’ transoceanic hybridity, rooted in Black Atlantic and South Asian Indian Ocean histories, both destabilizes hegemonic narratives of national belonging and reveals the structural limits placed on hybrid, gendered bodies within presidential politics. Drawing on Critical Mixed Race Studies and Diaspora Theory, the article investigates how Harris’ multi-ethnoracial identity was mobilized, scrutinized, and contested in media, campaign discourse, and political attacks, particularly in contrast to Donald Trump’s masculinist, frontier-based imaginaries of power. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative critical discourse analysis of key campaign texts, including the September 2024 presidential debate, Trump’s victory speech, and Harris’ concession speech, alongside close readings of Harris’ memoir. The analysis demonstrates how hybridity operates as a politically ambivalent force that can challenge exclusionary racial logics while remaining vulnerable to containment within dominant structures of power.
Arévalo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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