Today, at the entrance of the White House, they took down the official portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris. It was the first time a woman’s face had hung there. As I walk out of the White House for the last time, I worry that this will be forgotten, that history will write her historic achievement out of the frame. I worry that Americans aren’t being given the chance to celebrate what she accomplished.
Over the past few years, as the official videographer and director of video to Vice President Kamala Harris, I traveled the world with her, watching her navigate the White House and the world stage. I observed and documented nearly everything she did every day through my trusty White House–issued Sony FX3. I filmed her in 11 countries and in 91 cities across 27 U.S. states. I observed her with prime ministers and presidents and chancellors and kings—almost all of them men—and with hostile Republicans and their spouses who wouldn’t shake her hand. I saw her with the wives of world leaders, bullied teenagers, doctors, doulas, CEOs, proud grandmothers, and excited grandchildren. I saw as she charmed skeptics and commanded rooms, as she considered reporters’ questions, as she walked across a stage with 70,000 eyes watching her every move. I was there when the Somdet Phra Sangkharat Sakonmahasangkhaparinayok, Thailand’s highest-ranking Buddhist monk, didn’t shake her hand.
As a filmmaker, this was a dream: filming history in action, documenting the first woman to serve in this role. And even though my heart is broken that she lost the election, and I was continuously enraged by the ways sexism and racism made everything harder for her, something unexpected happened to me on the job: I witnessed Harris’ impact, and it began to change me.
The best thing about working for Kamala Harris was watching a phenomenally competent and successful woman own her power in the most challenging of circumstances. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, you didn’t get to see that often enough.
Vice President Harris never called a little girl cute or commented on her outfit; instead, she’d say, “You look like the smartest person in your class.” The vice president would say, “Let me hear you say, ‘I am a leader,’ ” and even the youngest girls would say it back. I filmed hundreds of clips of Kamala Harris telling young people to believe in themselves because they can achieve anything. And I noticed myself changing my conversations with my nieces, stopping myself from commenting on their outfits and asking instead about the thoughts in their heads.
One time, I needed the vice president to redo a line for a video, and I started out by apologizing, saying, “Ma’am, I’m so sorry, just one more time” before she interrupted me, “Don’t apologize for doing your job well.” From then on, whenever my instinct was to minimize myself, I would consider what my boss had told—and showed—me.
I started asking myself, “Would Kamala Harris apologize for this? Would she undermine herself like this?” I started to apologize less and stand my ground more. When I was often the only, or one of few, women behind the camera in a scrum, I would politely elbow my way to get the best angle and stop worrying whether I was blocking someone else’s shot. I grew taller. I stopped shrinking. In August 2023, as I took the best spot in the room, a male videographer said of me, “Fuck her,” loud enough so I could hear. I turned around just as the vice president walked in, and said, “Don’t talk to me like that.”
In September 2023 at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, I seemed to be the only woman in a group of official photographers and videographers from across Asia. The men all breezed through, but I got stopped by a security person, who asked what my job was, even though I had the same yellow arm band reading “OFFICIAL.” I pushed past and said, “The same as those guys. I need to go film the vice president of the United States.” An earlier me might have been frightened or disheartened, but I needed to get my shot.
Once, at an emergency briefing with local first responders in the wake of a hurricane, after five men spoke, the vice president extended the meeting so she could hear from the female fire chief, whose comments proved essential. With my camera, I started to make sure I had enough shots not just of women in the audience, listening, but of women speaking.
In a photo line in Miami, a 7-year-old girl told the vice president she liked writing, so naturally Harris suggested she write a book. The girl then literally wrote a book and sent it to our office. This is the importance of Kamala Harris. This is the impact that her style of leadership had on so many. Millions across America and the world are shattered today because Harris won’t be inaugurated as president, not just because she is a woman, but because she is exceptionally qualified. Her intentional, dignified ambition and confidence rubbed off on so many others, just like it rubbed off on me.
When the vice president asked me a few days ago about my post–White House plans, I told her that I’m starting my own production company with my wife. I joked, “Madam Vice President, if I can’t work for you, I’m going to work for myself. And my wife.” We laughed, but the truth is that before working for her, I would never have had the guts to start a company. Now, I think, why not me?
As I treasured my final days in the White House, I walked past the vice president’s ceremonial office and took a few moments to appreciate the photo of Midshipman 1st Class Sydney Barber, the first Black woman to serve as brigade commander at the United States Naval Academy. I passed the vice president’s west wing office, where she prominently displayed biographies of Rosa Parks and Constance Baker Motley and a painting of Amelia Boynton on Bloody Sunday hung on the wall. As I walked past the plaque of the “office of the second gentleman,” my heart broke yet again with the realization that this too was historic.
As I walked out of the doors of the west wing for the last time, it felt like the door was closing on the possibility of a woman ever leading from the Oval Office. Today, I am full of rage and devastation. But tomorrow, I will wake up with gratitude for all that I learned from Kamala Harris and will greet the future with defiance and hope—ready to take her lessons forward. Indeed, she may have been the first, but her leadership style reached so many others, guaranteeing that she will not be the last.
