During my recent move to Texas, I had plenty of time to kill on a twelve-hour drive from Georgia. So it was a great time for me to sit back and listen to the audio book, “Dreams from My Father” by Barack Obama that I had gotten from the library months ago, but had never gotten around to listening to. So I thought that this would be a good book to try my first attempt at a book review for my blog/podcast...let me know if I’m any good at it. Maybe one day when I get settled in here, I’ll record this in audio format and release it on the podcast.
With the 2008 presidential election raging on, I was interested in hearing more about this guy Obama. This Senator from Illinois who is making history, by trying (pretty successfully I might add) to become the first African-American Democratic nominee for the office of President of the United States of America. That fact in and of itself if pretty impressive to me. But the first thing that struck me about Obama’s story is that his African-American experience is many ways different from my own.
I have a good friend from Nigeria who persuaded me to finally give this book a listen. He had read the book recently, and was telling me that, “We really need to elect this guy man, (in deep Nigerian accent)” even though he is unable to vote himself. After finishing the book, I think I can understand why my friend recommended the book. From what I know about him, Barack Obama’s story, or really what the book is about - Barack’s coming of age as an African-American man, his search for knowledge about his father, his retelling of his father’s journey to America, and his Kenyan roots, resembled my Nigerian friend’s American journey much more than my own life as a black man descended from slaves born and raised in America. After finishing his book, I understand better that Barack Obama is a very unique political figure in America. He is a man with native white American and native African heritage, who was exposed to the world outside of America at a very young age in a way very different from most Americans and African-Americans I know. He writes in the book about how he had to search out and learn for himself what it really means to him to be an African-American, in the truest sense of the word.
(SPOILER ALERT!!)
The story begins with Barack learning about his father’s passing, and then flashes back to him reminiscing about his childhood. He spends the first part of the book describing the family members that raised him. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham (yeah, her father named her Stanley, but she was called Ann) and his grandparents, a white Midwestern family from Kansas who follow the whims of the grandfather through several jobs and states before settling down in Hawaii. The Dunham family members are each intriguing and complex characters, who in their own lives demonstrate the societal changes that took place in American in the mid-20th century. Obama describes his family as fair-minded people, and very likeable through their interactions with each other. Then his father enters the picture. Barack Obama Sr. is described as a man who made a strong impression upon everyone he met. The stories shared about his time in Hawaii are some of the funniest moments of the book. Well, Barack Sr. and Ann meet at the University of Hawaii, fall in love, and soon young Barack (Barry) Obama is born.
Shortly afterwards, the elder Barack leaves his new family (for reasons discovered later in the story) and returns to Kenya, leaving his wife and son behind. As Barry grows older, his mother Ann then falls in love with and marries a Filipino man named Lolo, and the young family moves to the Philippines.
It is in the Philippines, where Barack describes his coming of age and learning about the differences between the rich, powerful, and privileged, and everyone else. His stepfather Lolo, and his struggles in the Philippines is the model through which Barack learns these important lessons. At the time, the Philippines were going through political and economic turmoil, and these chapters are very revealing in describing how Barack views the importance of what it means to be an American.
Upon he and his mother’s return to Hawaii, Barack continues his schooling in the United States, and it is in these chapters where Barack begins to learn and describe his experiences as a young black man in America. This part of the book is very interesting in that Barack describes the inner struggles he dealt with in trying to identify with what America perceives young black men to be. He writes very candidly about his friends, and their talks and ideas on race, as well as the reactions of the white people he grew up with to his foreign, Muslim name, bi-racial heritage, and expectations of him as a young African-American man.
From this point Barack describes his college years in California and New York, many more observances and attitudes of race in America, his path towards finding himself beyond the American stereotypes, and what he wants to do with his adult life. He eventually settles on becoming a community organizer in an attempt to follow in the footsteps of his civil rights movement heroes, and to try to offer help to the black community. After meeting a young black woman in college and being intrigued by her description of her life growing up in Chicago, Barack decides to pursue his career as an organizer there. The way Barack writes about his time in Chicago, was to me some of the most interesting and important moments of the book. He describes the people he met and worked with honestly and beautifully. All of the men and women from the neighborhoods, streets, churches, city offices, and organizations are revealed as good and honest people, whose views and opinions on how to best help change their inner-city communities differ and conflict with each other, but are each sincere and good intentioned. In these chapters Barack vividly brings the city of Chicago to life, and describes it as a complex city during and after the time of its first black mayor Harold Washington.
In time Barack takes a break from his community organizing responsibilities to pursue a law degree at Harvard University. He also begins to meet his extended Kenyan family, most memorably his oldest sister Auma. She persuades him to return to his father’s homeland of Kenya, and eventually meets him there and introduces him to his extended African family members, including his grandmother, brothers and sisters, aunts, and uncles. It is on this journey that the book concludes, with Barack receiving his family inheritance (not the monetary inheritance you would immediately think of) and learning much more about his father Barack Sr., his grandfather Hussein, and his African ancestry than he ever imagined. These chapters were fascinating in their descriptions of Kenyan life, and the history of his patriarchs in their dealing with their families, the white men who colonized Kenya, and the burdens they carried in trying to lead their children to pursue better lives for themselves. The epilogue closes the book beautifully with Barack describing his return to America, and his meeting and marriage to his wife, Michelle.
“Dreams from My Father” is Barack Obama’s honest look at himself and his early life, and is written in a voice much more timid and personal than the confident political speaker that we have become used to hearing during his presidential campaign. For anyone wishing to learn more about this man, and how he views himself and his place in the world, I strongly recommend it.
