By Shar­lene Hendricks

ORANGE HILL, Jamaica — Res­i­dents of this small town in the farm­ing coun­try of north­ern Jamaica ed elat­ed Wednes­day night as Kamala Har­ris, daugh­ter of one of the many Orange Hill res­i­dents who emi­grat­ed to the U.S., accept­ed the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for vice president.

“This is a proud moment for us as know­ing that she is fam­i­ly. She’s mak­ing his­to­ry!”‘ said Har­ris’ cousin New­ton Har­ris, a 29-year-old legal con­sul­tant in the office of the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of Jamaica.

“As long as she remains the faith­ful ser­vant of those who need her advo­ca­cy the most, she’ll go far and his­to­ry will be kind to her,” said New­ton Har­ris, who was ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion online at home.

Econ­o­mist Don­ald Har­ris was raised in Orange Hill and emi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States, where he mar­ried Indi­an immi­grant Shya­mala Gopalan and had two daugh­ters. His close rela­tion­ship with Kamala and her sis­ter end­ed with his divorce from their moth­er in 1972, accord­ing to father and daugh­ter, but Kamala con­tin­ued to trav­el to Jamaica as a young woman.

Accept­ing the vice pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion Wednes­day night, she spoke at length about her moth­er but men­tioned her father and Jamaica only briefly. Nonethe­less, her rel­a­tives in Orange Hill said they clear­ly saw the influ­ence of the Har­ris fam­i­ly on the first Black woman named to a major U.S. par­ty pres­i­den­tial tick­et. For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden chose Har­ris as his run­ning mate last week.

Known for their roles in busi­ness and pol­i­tics, the Har­ris­es count among their ranks the candidate’s great-grand­moth­er Chris­tiana Brown, own­er of a pop­u­lar dry goods store. Her great-aunt Thel­ma Har­ris served as a town coun­cilor for the Jamaican Labor Par­ty in the 1970s, when it was rel­a­tive­ly rare for women to be in pol­i­tics in Jamaica, fam­i­ly mem­bers told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press. Oth­er rel­a­tives have also held local posi­tions for the JLP, one of Jamaica’s two major par­ties, in St. Ann’s Parish, the dis­trict encom­pass­ing Orange Hill and the near­by mar­ket cen­ter, Brown’s Town, where Chris­tiana Brown ran her store.

After fol­low­ing her career for years, the extend­ed Har­ris fam­i­ly in Jamaica was elat­ed at their relative’s rise to a his­toric nomination.

“Her speech was bril­liant,” said cousin Max­ine Cross, a 65-year-old prop­er­ty man­ag­er. “Loved it! We are so proud of Kamala.”

In South Flori­da, mem­bers of the 300,000-strong Jamaican-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brat­ed just as hard when Har­ris was cho­sen as Biden’s run­ning mate, say­ing she will make it eas­i­er for Democ­rats to mobi­lize vot­ers in a must-win state for Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

“The enthu­si­asm lev­el is through the roof. Peo­ple are extreme­ly excit­ed,” said Dale Hol­ness, the Jamaican-born Demo­c­ra­t­ic may­or of Broward Coun­ty, home to the largest Jamaican com­mu­ni­ty in South Flori­da. “They are over­joyed to real­ize that a daugh­ter of immi­grants could be placed in a posi­tion where she would be the sec­ond in command.”

Mark Dou­glas, a com­mis­sion­er for the city of Sun­rise, who immi­grat­ed to South Flori­da from Jamaica in his 20s, said that vot­ers from oth­er Caribbean nations such as Trinidad and Toba­go, Haiti and the Bahamas may also feel more inclined to vote for Biden now that Har­ris is on the tick­et. “We usu­al­ly root for each oth­er,” he said.

The front page of the Caribbean Nation­al Week­ly, a wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed South Flori­da pub­li­ca­tion serv­ing sev­er­al Caribbean dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties, sport­ed the head­line “It’s Kamala!” right over “Caribbean Amer­i­can is Biden’s VP pick.”

Don­ald Har­ris is an econ­o­mist who is a pro­fes­sor emer­i­tus at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Through a Stan­ford spokes­woman, he declined to answer ques­tions about his daughter’s Jamaican ancestry.

“I know Don­ald, but I didn’t know any of his daugh­ters,” the nominee’s cousin Karen Har­ris said in an inter­view in St. Ann’s Parish. “‘We are still very proud of her.”

Like Don­ald Har­ris, many of the sons and daugh­ters of Orange Hill seek bet­ter lives in the Unit­ed States. Kamala Har­ris’ nom­i­na­tion has giv­en them new hope for their own success.

“The Har­ris are hard­work­ing peo­ple. So this lady now, when I heard about it, I laugh and rejoice,” said Vita Steven­son, a 75-year-old store own­er in Orange Hill who is not relat­ed to the Har­ris­es. “I have a daugh­ter there who gives me infor­ma­tion about every­thing going on in Amer­i­ca. … I am pray­ing for (Kamala’s) victory.”

Asso­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Michael Weis­senstein in Havana and Adri­ana Gomez Licon in Mia­mi con­tributed to this report.