Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
A Story of Race and Inheritance
The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Barack Obama was only two years old when his parents separated. Many years later, Obama received a telephone call from Nairobi informing him of his father’s death. This distressing and unexpected news sparked an emotion odyssey for Obama, leading him to set out to discover the truth of his father’s life and reconcile his divided inheritance.
Dreams from My Father is an unforgettable read, illuminating not only Obama’s personal journey of discovery but also the universal desire that people have to understand their history and what makes them into the people they are.
Life before Politics
In Dreams from My Father Barack Obama narrates his life up until he enrolled at Harvard Law School.
Obama’s parents, Kenyan Barack Obama Sr. and American Ann Dunham, were both students at the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa when young Barack was born in 1961. His parents separated and divorce in 1964 and Obama Sr. returned to his home in Kenya. Obama was only to see his father again once more, in 1971 when Obama Sr. visited Hawaii for a month. Obama Sr. died in a car accident in 1982.
After her divorce, Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro and they, along with young Barack, moved to Jakarta. When Obama was ten years old he was sent back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents so that he could take advantage of the greater educational opportunities available in the United States. It was while he was enrolled at Punahou School, a private college-preparatory school, that Obama first became aware of racism and what it means to be African-American. He was one of three black children in the predominantly Asian-American school.
After finishing high school, Obama enrolled at Occidental College and lived something of a party lifestyle. He then transferred to Columbia College at Columbia University and majored in Political Science.
After graduating from college, Obama worked for a year in business before moving to Chicago to work for a non-profit organisation doing community organising in the Altgeld Gardens housing project. Obama notes that working at Altgeld Gardens was a difficult experience since they faced resistance from the community as well as apathy from the local bureaucracy. It was while he was working in Chicago that Obama first joined the Trinity United Church of Christ.
Before leaving for Harvard Law School, Obama travelled to Kenya to meet his father’s family and to try and better understand his own background and character.
As well as relating his life story, in Dreams from My Father Obama gives a great deal of thought to his own experiences of race and race relations in the United States.
A Personal Journey
With Dreams from My Father Obama proved that, unlike many other politicians he really can write. An immensely honest and quite beautifully written memoir, Dreams from My Father is essentially a book about identity. Obama puzzles through his ideas on his life as a black man in the United States and the dual worlds that his mixed race background places him in. Although his own sense of identity motivated Obama to give up his career in business to work as a community organiser, he realises that his identity might begin with the fact of his race but it doesn’t end there. It was this realisation that led him to take a trip to Kenya to meet his father’s family and gain a sense of his personal roots.
Dreams from My Father is an unusually candid political biography, quite possibly because it was first published before Obama launched his campaign to reach the highest echelons of politics, but does set the scene for Obama’s future ambitions. It is an inspiring journey towards the understanding of race, culture, social responsibility and family and really is an excellent read.
Barack Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, is also available from Canongate Books.
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
ISBN 978-1847670946, Canongate Books, 2008, pp 464, £8.99
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
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