Stronger Than Ever - Sonya Harris

Meet six women who persevered through adversity to develop notable careers.

(Photo Credit: Ryan Angel Meza)

By Sena Christian

Published December 15, 2022

Published by Sacramento Magazine

Sonya Harris was 8 years old, sitting in the living room of her family’s house in Arboga, when she heard a knock on the front door. A firefighter warned the family that a nearby levee had burst and their house in this part of unincorporated Yuba County would flood.

Her family fled to safety. Harris saw the good life her parents—her mother, a Korean immigrant, and her father, a builder and restorer of cars as a small-business owner—had worked so hard to build tragically taken away. But not for long. While living in an RV in their backyard, her parents ripped their house down to the studs, cleaned it out and rebuilt. Others pitched in to help.

Through this experience, Harris says she had a front-row seat to resilience, which shaped how she views problems and informed her career as a public servant for more than 15 years in California state government.

Harris worked in the offices of a lieutenant governor and two governors, Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. While in Newsom’s office, she served as chief of staff on the Census 2020 outreach effort to motivate Californians—especially immigrant families—to get counted. She helped create a model of trusted messengers, people like pastors, local business owners and PTA presidents, to share census information in their own communities.

Harris helped apply this same model when she joined the California Department of Public Health to oversee the state’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign. “We tested this model; we saw that it worked and was really effective, especially with our most vulnerable communities,” she says.

The success of this community engagement led to the state’s new Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications.

Read more at Sacmag.com.

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