She could be first APA in position On a sunny Thursday morning, fresh from her 6 a.m. treadmill workout, 38-yearold Kamala Devi Harris has already started her workday as a deputy city attorney with a handful of meetings.Most of her work centers on her job as chief of neighborhood and community services, under City Attorney’s Dennis Herrera’s trial team. But Harris is busy these days. She is working on her campaign to be the next district attorney for San Francisco.If elected, Harris would become not only the first female district attorney in the city’s history, but also the first district attorney of Asian Pacific American descent.Dressed sharply in an off black, pinstriped, tailored suit complete with textured, pointy heels, Harris moves with a confident and graceful gait. make it a rule to always wear 3-inch heels,” Harris says, laughing, as she adjusts the gold, infinity-shaped earring on her left ear.Harris, with or without 3-inch heels, is statuesque in all her 5 feet 4 inches. Her first name, Kamala is Hindi for “lotus flower,” a description, she says, is very befitting of her personality.“In terms of Indian culture, my name represents the beautiful lotus flower,” Harris says, as she gathers her fingers together into a bunch to demonstrate the flower.“But the thing I feel most akin to the lotus flower is even though it’s in water, it never gets wet. So there’s this idea that one is amid all this murky water, but doesn’t absorb anyCurrently, the San Francisco Police Department crisis has two of Harris’ contenders for district attorney involved. Incumbent District Attorney Terence Hallinan brought forth the federal grand jury indictments and Defense Attorney Bill Fazio his third run — is representing one of the indicted captains.But Harris has not taken an active role in this case; instead she chooses to focus on other issues like working to bring about city services for immigrant women and children — something she hopes to accomplish and expand if elected.Harris adds that she has not read enough evidence surrounding the case to make any substantiated comments regarding the actions taken against the indicted officers.PROTECTING THE CHILDRENTrue to her name and its characteristics, Harris has fought discrimination and discouragement from pursuing a career in law to become a deputy city attorney for the past decade in both San Francisco and Alameda counties, and former deputy district attorney. And if anyone has risen to the occasion, it’s Harris. A longtime champion for juvenile rights, Harris has made it her priority to stamp out child exploitation and prostitution in the city. She heads the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids (CEEK). Harris recently presented a detailed report on the child prostitution epidemic in San Francisco at a Board of Supervisors hearing of the City Services Committee.“This task force was created to bring light to an issue that has been plaguing the city for a long time,” Harris says. “This is the city’s response from a social services perspective.”Harris says the coalition’s main goals include opening a safe house for child prostitutes, starting a 24-hour help hotline and having an accessible outreach program that would provide help to children between the hours of 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., a time when those wandering the streets are most vulnerable and most in need.Harris acknowledges that her job is a tough job. She sees some of the most disadvantaged people — children who are victims of abuse, rape, incest — and believes that they deserve the treatment."I've dealt with many child assault cases, in which these children were runaways because their fathers, uncles, mothers’ boyfriends sexually abused them,” says Harris. “And many of these kids develop post-traumatic stress disorder and many of these find ways to self-medicate, to dull the trauma and pain.”Although Harris has seen her share of disturbing child abuse and exploitation cases, she says one that still haunts her involved a 13-year-old girl who was gang raped by a group of men whom she thought were friends she could trust.“During the closing statements, I stood in front of the jury and told them that I knew they didn’t like the girl because she was obnoxious and offensive, but that didn’t mean that she was not entitled to protection and to just remain a victim,” Harris says. “This is what happens, people who have been victimized for so long become invisible and offensive to the public and therefore, are not worthy of sympathy or action. This is very troubling, but it happens all the time.”TWO WORLDSHarris has looked within her own family to find the inspiration and passion that drives her to fight for women and children rights. The daughter of a South Asian mother and a Jamaican father, Harris was brought up in an environment full of support and surprise.“My mother is the original feminist,” Harris says. “Which is quite fascinating since she is South Asian.”But it didn’t start there. In the 1940s, Harris’ grandmother drove around in a VW bug in India with a bullhorn telling village women to get birth control. "I mean, when I heard that, that blew my mind,” says Harris laughing. “Even though my grandma had an arranged marriage when she was 12, she and my grandfather were very openminded people.”The women in family aren’t rebels, but rather very independent women who are true to themselves, according to Harris.“My mother fell in love with my father, a black man, and she didn’t have an arranged marriage, which my grandparents at first weren’t too happy with,” she says. “Then she divorced my father when I was 7 years old and my sister, Maya Lakshmi, was 5."Harris grew up in Berkeley on Bancroft Way and Bonar Street, and attended Thousand Oaks Elementary School. Her classmate in the first, second and third grades was San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin.Harris says she’s blessed with having been exposed to Asian,black and American cultures as a child. She remembers going to a Buddhist temple at the crack of dawn, only to attend service at a Baptist church later in the morning. "Igrew up with a strong Indian culture, and I was raised in a black community,” she says. “All my friends were black and we got together and cooked Indian food and painted henna on our hands, and I never felt uncomfortable with my cultural background.”Harris attended high school in Montreal, received her undergraduate degree at Howard University and law degree at Hastings Law School. She worked for Hallinan for two years after he recruited her from the Alameda District Attorney’s Office. Two years ago, former city attorney Louise Renne asked Harris to join her office, and Harris has been there ever since.IMPROVINC THE OFFICEStill early in the race, Harris has garnered big name endorsements from Mayor Willie Brown, Peskin, Fiona Ma and Sophie Maxwell and Assemblymen Leland Yee and Mark Leno. “ "I’m running because San Francisco deserves a first class D.A’s office,” Harris says. “We deserve better. In Terence Hallinan’s mind, he believes he’s done a good job, but why have the best office? I'm not looking to run against him to run against his office, but I'm looking to improve the office.”