Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
According to survey results released February 15, 2011, by Public Policy Polling, and reported the same day by NPR, a 51% majority of national GOP primary voters wrongly believe President Obama was not born in the U.S. This finding spurs discussion of a variety of issues, like the apparent fact that many U.S. voters find it somehow repugnant to be an American born abroad, or the fact that it is not even clear under U.S. law whether an American born abroad is in fact a “natural born citizen” eligible for U.S. Presidency. Regardless, it is clear that many Americans could be better informed. To that end, I’d recommend Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama, as a worth-while read—and it would be even if the guy that wrote it hadn’t gone on to become an American President.
The book is divided into 3 sections and an epilogue. The first section recounts Obama’s childhood in Hawaii and a couple of years spent in Indonesia. It is interesting to see the impression made upon Obama of being an outsider in Indonesia, and as an American abroad it is reassuring to me that his mind is open to the rest of the world. Unfortunate, then, that so many policies disadvantaging Americans abroad persist–but I digress. The second section is about his experiences as a community organizer in Chicago, before going to law school. The stories in this section were especially interesting, and I was impressed by his dedication and faith that his efforts and investments were worthwhile. The third section covers Obama’s first visit to Kenya. While I was afraid that this section would idealize Africa too much, it actually did a good job of presenting the cultural conflicts (values of colonialism/Western world vs. tribalism) in a concise way without smoothing over the complexities of the issues.
While the book is presented as a search for identity as a black man in America, the themes have much broader application. Who are any of us? Is there really such a thing as a pure cultural identity anymore? Personally, I am an American married to a German. Our daughter was born in Switzerland, where we have just returned after two years in Dubai. She will grow up speaking English and German, and still remembers a little Arabic. Maybe this is a great gift we are giving her–to be comfortable in so many cultures, but it also might have her asking where her home really is. I liked Obama’s ultimate approach of taking the good from each of his cultural backgrounds, and leaving behind the bad. I also liked the theme implicit in the epilogue, that your community–wherever it is you invest, regardless of geography–is where you are from.
myowngeography 