Why Did Kamala Harris Go To High School In Canada?

Tucker Carlson can definitely be shady and isn't afraid to stir up iffy-at-best buzz on a regular basis. He seemed to be trying to do just that on November 15 when the Fox News host went after Vice President Kamala Harris. Although the segment was supposed to focus on the politician's past romantic life, Carlson first felt the need to throw some doubt on Harris' status as an American.

"There's a lot we don't know about Kamala Harris," Carlson claimed while talking about the public figure. He attempted to back up his statement by saying that "most people probably don't know she really grew up in Canada." Wait ... what? That's not quite true. Even the White House notes that Harris was born in Oakland, California, while Business Insider adds that she spent her childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area.

What Carlson was actually referring to was the fact that Canada is "where she went to high school." By his reasoning, that means "she's not from this country in that sense, or she's certainly also from Canada." While you might understandably be scratching your head over the claim that the VP isn't as American as she, you know, actually is, it is true that Harris did go to high school in Canada and it turns out that she did so for an incredible reason!

Kamala Harris might be making history these days, however, when she was young, it was her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who was doing amazing things. Gopalan was a breast cancer researcher, per the White House, and this is what led the family to Canada.

Following Gopalan's divorce from Harris' father when the future VP was 7 years old, the mother of two — Harris has a sister, Maya — was offered a job at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Quebec, per Biography. It was there that Gopalan advanced what medical professionals can do to detect breast cancer. As for Harris, she went to Westmount High School where she excelled both socially and academically. In time, she returned to the United States to study at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and then pursue law in her home state of California — which, of course, eventually turned into a remarkable political career.

So, yes, Harris did live outside of America for a time when she was younger. But so did Tucker Carlson, the man who claimed that going to school in another country means you aren't (fully?) American. Swiss magazine Welt Woche noted that he went to boarding school in Switzerland when he was a teenager. However, he didn't do as well as Harris when it came to success at school. Frankly, he didn't seem terribly proud to admit that he "got kicked out." Why? He won't say, despite the fact that people are certainly curious.