Dreams From My Father: A Story Of Race And Influence

President Barack Obama is know for remarkable events such as becoming the first African American president of the United States; however, not everyone knows about what else Obama has done. He is also an author who has written around twenty books including a memoir about his early life leading up to his life in law school, and a children’s book dedicated to his daughters. His most famous book Dreams From My Father, a memoir about his early life leading up to law school, is a prime example of what influenced him to write. There were many things that happened in Obama’s life that caused him to write. Things such as the segregation happening in the U.S at the time, his broken home and his feelings towards his absent father.

In the beginning of his speech, Obama discusses his family and their past, how his grandfather served the United States and was a veteran of World War II. He speaks about the name that was given to him, Obama, as being African and how his parents felt that it isnt your name that takes you places and makes you who you are, it your character, strength, and personality. He also descibes his encounters with that he

President Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu Hawaii, August 4, 1961. Obama lived with his mother and father for a short period of time until his father left when he was around the age of two.Obama didn 't really have a relationship with his father . When Obama was little growing up without his father was a struggle for him.When Obama was 10 he moved back to Hawaii to live with his Grandparents,While living with his grandparents, He enrolled in the esteemed Punahou Academy. Obama excelled in basketball and graduated with academic honors in 1979.After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science. After working in the business sector for two years, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked on the impoverished South Side as a community organizer for low-income residents in the Roseland and the Altgeld Gardens communities.

James McBride was born in 1957 to Ruth and Dennis McBride and was raised in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects with his eleven brothers and sisters (Bodhos 2). In 1997 McBride’s bestselling memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother was published. The story is uniquely written in double voice with chapters alternating between chapters as the author recounts his life growing up as a biracial child and his mother recalls in detail her disownment from her Orthodox Jewish family, marrying a black man and successfully raising twelve biracial children. The connection of the two stories is compelling

“The soul was the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit was the blood that watered the cotton, and these created the first fruits of the American garden” (Coates 104). In Between the World and Me,” and within this quote alone, Ta-Nehisi Coates argued not only the importance of black identity, but also how and why black identity was so deceivingly shaped in response to the dark history behind it. Through Coates’ recollections and fair warnings to his son, the relationship between black identity and “The Dream” becomes clearer. In spite of the “white supremacist” trademark that comes stamped upon “The Dream,” Coates provides impermeable evidence as to why black identity is not only more invested in history than white identity, but more importantly why it is the investment to be made in “The American Dream.”

He does this by stating that no matter how much you love your child, you cannot protect and raise them by yourself. That the task takes “the help of neighbors, the help of the community, and the help of the nation...”(Obama) That the children belong to all of us and that we all owe

The President has been dealing with losses and tough experiences since birth. “Away from my mother, away from my grandparents, I was engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant” (Pg. 67). He had to learn a lot on his own which made him a stronger person and more independent as he looked for ways to learn and how to adapt to different surroundings especially since he moved around so often. Mr. President also took from his father in intelligence as he states, “He arrived at the University of Hawaii as the institutional’s first African student” (Pg. 9). This tells us that there was some kind of inherited intelligence because multiple African students had applied to the University of Hawaii, but Barack Obama Sr., was the only one to be accepted, and then went on to attend Harvard University for graduate school, one of the most prestigious schools in the nation today. President Obama suffered a good amount in his childhood, but he realized he was different stating, “I realized that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words. I saw that my life in America — the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I'd felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born in Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama Sr. Was brought up to raise goats in Africa and, earned a scholarship that let him leave Kenya and live out his dream of going to school in Hawaii. While he was a student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Obama Sr. met the women that would become Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, and they got married on February 2, 1961. Barack was born a few short months after. His mother, Ann Dunham, was born on an Army base in Kansas,during World War II. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Dunham's father, Stanley, enlisted in the Army. Her mother, Madelyn, began to work on an assembly line that manufactured

He first characterized his family in detail and thoroughly described their racial make up. His father is a black man from Kenya; and his mother is a white woman from Kansa. He was raised by a black grandfather who served in World War II, and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line. President Obama has also seen both ends of the spectrum as he was raised in one of the world’s poorest nations; but later went on to attend some of America’s most prestigious schools. He talked about his wife and how she is a black American woman with the blood of slaves as well as slave owners. This information about his life was a vital piece to include in his speech because it connected him with other African American’s. It gave credibility to his speech and made his message more valid. It showed America that him and his family have overcome many difficulties in life, similar to what many American’s are trying to, commonly referred to as “the American dream.” His own “American story” was very beneficial to include because it brought forth a great deal of emotion from voters, especially African American voters. By incorporating details that raised emotions, he was able to connect

Schaeffer states, “President Obama has been lied about, attacked, vilified, and disrespected since Day One” (“Slow Lynching”). This could not be truer. No other presidential candidate has been demanded by the public to produce a birth certificate. Some schools even distributed opt-out forms to students so that parents could prohibit their children from watching the President’s “Back-to- School Speech”, a speech that is not political in nature but rather encourages children to work hard and pay attention in school. Obama was unfairly criticized before he even took office, let alone actually pass and

Growing up , young Obama struggled without having a real father to guide him. Without a father , Obama lacked guidance from the person he needed it the most from. Though he had guidance form his grandparents and mother who took tremendous

Bergs is Obama moving to Indonesia. George Spelvin from Western Journalism stated, “…nearly one half of the Obama candidacy challenge has to do with his adoption by Lolo Soetoro when his mother Stanley Ann Dunham Obama married and moved to the police state of Indonesia.” This helps Philip J. Bergs because looking further into this statement and when looked into this information follows, “When a male Indonesian citizen adopts or “acknowledges a child as his son,” that child is deemed to be Indonesian because the country does not allow dual citizenship status. The U.S. law neither allows dual citizenship nor intervention according to the l930 Hague Convention protocols.” This means that when Obama left America for Indonesia he lost his chance of being naturalized meaning he would have to go back through the American Citizenship

Speaking about race, Michael Omi and Howard Winant said that "We utilize race to provide clues about who a person is. This fact is made painfully obvious when we encounter someone whom we cannot conveniently racially categorize someone who is, for example, racially "mixed" or of an ethic/racial group we are not familiar with" (Omi and Winant, p.59). This is a particularly interesting observation when considering President Obama, widely lauded as the nation's first African-American president, though he was born to a white mother and raised by that white mother and his white grandparents, with no real influence by his black, African father, so that he is not only racially mixed, but culturally different from most African Americans. However, in a society like America, where race is such a predominant factor, Obama's blackness has become an integral part of his identity; he is criticized as being too black or not black enough by people with various agendas attached to their concept of black Americans.

Getting to this place was a journey for Obama just as it is for all others, in my opinion. My perception of the encounter, for Barack, was neither horribly negative, nor very positive. He was simply lost, it seemed. As a young child attending a prestigious school in Hawaii, Barack Obama was cared for by his white American mother and grandparents, but was a brown child, having also a black Kenyan father. Barack was an outcast for everyone, being secluded from the whites because of his look, and having a different outlook than other black students at his school who held the view that they were oppressed by white people. It was far from sensible that the people who loved, cared for, and supported him the most could oppress Barack.

Barack visited relatives in Kenya, which included a very emotional visit to the graves of his father and grandfather. "Obama said. “I saw that my life in America—the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in Chicago all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away." Obama came back from Kenya with a new respect and outlook on life.