TORONTO -- Although U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris made history Wednesday equally the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent to be sworn into the office, scholars say she'll be dealing with "unrealistic expectations'' like those placed on other racialized women in leadership.

But they urge social justice groups to proceed demanding that Harris fights for them and non simply settle on surface-level representation. Scholars said she represents a pivot away from the tumultuous years of the Trump administration.

"This is a significant moment and nosotros hope that at that place will exist a shift," Laura J. Kwak, an banana folklore professor at York University, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.

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"And I call up Kamala Harris is bringing a lot of hope," she said, noting similarities between Harris and the way U.S. President Barack Obama was a symbol of hope after the George Due west. Bush-league presidency.

"She has a lot on her shoulders because when yous're racialized and a woman, you're not just a representative of your constituents," Kwak said. "She's called upon to represent women, Black women, South Asian women. And this is a lot to bargain with."

Kathy Hogarth, an acquaintance professor at the University of Waterloo's schoolhouse of social work echoed that, saying, "nosotros expect a miracle. The expectation placed on racialized bodies who occupy these positions is unrealistic."

"We promise that these people are saviours and can practice what no others accept washed before," said Hogarth, whose enquiry focuses on race, racism and equity in Canada. She stressed that extremely high expectations were also put on America'due south first Blackness president.

"The claiming with representation -- whether white or racialized -- there'south an expectation on one private to change 500 years of changes in a matter of months," she said.

Eve Haque, author of the book, "Multiculturalism Within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race and Belonging in Canada," said "people will always want more. They'll always want more than from women, people will want more than from women of color."

They all warned that Harris' symbolism -- equally she becomes the highest-ranking leader of colour in the U.Due south. -- won't go unnoticed past racists and white supremacists. And this would exist peculiarly the case for those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January. 6. and more broadly by those who've been emboldened by former president Donald Trump's racism over the past four years.

"Racism is a trouble and any racialized trunk [in the U.S and in Canada] that dares to occupy a senior-level position will come under assault," Hogarth said. "The Biden administration has a rocky route ahead just this also tells u.s.a. that Kamala Harris, in item, has an uphill battle."

Biden wins

Because Black and other communities of colour were largely responsible for the Biden-Harris ticket winning the U.S. ballot, scholars expect social justice groups to strongly push the administration on what they campaigned on.

"Property our leaders to account and engaging rigorously is all part of a democratic club," said Kwak, whose research examines the crossroads of politics, race, gender and representation. "I recall we need to continue to listen to BLM [Black Lives Matter] and those calling for a more just guild."

Kwak said that like other racialized women in meridian government jobs, "the question is, really, how someone who is Blackness and Indian and woman will correspond policies that would disserve those communities?"

"Substantive representation -- the much more meaningful representation that this position could beget -- opens up the possibility for much more progressive directions," she said. "However, if we look back at history, has that been more often the case?"

Kwak said that U.K. Prime Government minister Margaret Thatcher, the outset woman to presume the role, concluded upwards enacting more oppressive policies against women, and while the Conservative Party of Canada courted more minorities during the early 2010s, Stephen Harper withal alleged "Islamicism" was the greatest threat to Canada and his regime passed the omnibus offense bill in 2012 that she said disproportionally affected Blackness and Indigenous people.

Scholars also noted that progressives were well aware of the limitations of the office of the U.S. vice-president, also every bit Harris' history every bit a moderate politician.

Haque said it's no hush-hush that Harris is far from a radical progressive, having spent years as a "law and society" Democrat during her fourth dimension as California's attorney general then, equally U.S. senator.

Based on her record, she doesn't expect Harris to be a huge vehicle for paradigm shifts in policy. "You lot take to be careful in investing in radical change in institutions that are ultimately founded in white supremacy," Haque said.

Biden, Harris in Washington

HARRIS IS BALANCING MULTIPLE IDENTITIES, INTERESTS

Haque, an associate professor who teaches languages and linguistics at York University, said so far in her career, Harris has deftly balanced her Black and southward Asian identities publicly.

But Harris' language and her actions will constantly exist policed during her tenure, she said. "Is she Black enough? Is she brown enough? Does she mention her mom plenty? What is her relationship with her dad and thereby what does that mean for her practices of Blackness?"

And now, on height of that, she'll accept to govern while balancing competing interests within the Black and Indian communities themselves -- neither which are monolithic nor share the same values or goals, Haque said.

She said the Indian diaspora in the U.Southward. includes strong supporters of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Punjabis, Hindus and Muslims – some of whom were in bitter conflict with each other.

"Then what precisely can she say that will keep them happy?" she said.

Bourgeois Indians in the diaspora criticized Harris for speaking out confronting the Indian authorities's foray into the disputed region of Kashmir; while other Indians criticized Harris for not saying enough about the ongoing farmers' protest in India, who have been protesting agricultural laws they fence volition threaten their livelihood.

And on the other manus, Haque said there is a "whole pile of people who are going to be actually happy it isn't Trump and his whole white supremacist coterie."

Hogarth said Obama faced criticisms from both inside and outside the Black community who felt "he didn't do enough to accelerate the cause of Blackness people. And I think Kamala Harris will be faced with similar criticism and it is simply an unrealistic expectation."

Instead, she urged people not to hold her to a higher standard considering she's a woman or racialized, but simply to what she promised during the campaign. Hogarth described Harris as merely 1 "part of what we have fought for," in regards to people's ongoing fight for women'south rights and equality.

"We have a female vice president who happens to be a racialized woman, and that for us is progress and that signals hope… it'due south a win for us all."

Kwak added, "what Americans are hopeful for is a different kind of future and I hope for that also."