How Kamala Harris’s ‘Family of Fighters’ Influenced Her Campaign Message

Candidate cites civil-rights activism of her Indian-born mother and grandfather as she tries to gain traction.

Kamala Harris hadn’t yet sat down to eat gumbo with a family in Waterloo, Iowa, earlier this month when her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, became a part of the conversation.

Sen. Harris (D., Calif.) comforted her host, Cathy Ketton, who lost her mother to cancer, as Ms. Harris did a decade ago. “In your grief, try to remember how she lived and not how she died,” she said.

The life of Shyamala Gopalan...