TEHRAN – The first Persian translation of “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey” written by U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has recently been published in Tehran.

The Noon Publishing House has published the book translated into Persian by Ali-Akbar Abdorrashidi, a former TV host.

Harris’s commitment to speaking the truth is informed by her upbringing. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social justice; her parents, an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired cancer researcher from India, met as activists in the civil rights movement when they were graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley. 

Growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a prosecutor out of law school, a deputy district attorney, she quickly established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the state of California as a whole. 

Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure crisis, winning a historic settlement for California’s working families. Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of California’s thorniest issues, always eschewing stale “tough on crime”. 

Neither “tough” nor “soft” but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the truths that can make one better as a community, and supporting those truths with all her might. That has been the pole star that guided Harris to a transformational career as the top law enforcement official in California, and it is guiding her now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, country and the world, from health care and the new economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis and accelerating inequality.

By reckoning with the big challenges, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, Harris offers in “The Truths We Hold” a master class in problem-solving, crisis management, and leadership in challenging times. Through the arc of her own life, on into the great work of the day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose and shared values. 

In a book rich in many fundamental truths, not the least of which is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to convince a great many that they have less in common than they actually do, but it falls upon them to look past this and get on with the good work of living within the common truth. 

Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of Kamala Harris’s book “The Truths We Hold”.

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