Kevin Chung

Prof. Anderson
ENGL 1301.049
22 September 2009

Book Review

Barack Obama has successfully captivated the minds of many Americans. Typically,

in an autobiography, the author would put himself on a pedestal and overinflate his own

worth, but Obama differs. In his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, it’s shocking to

witness how honest and open he is. One may scrutinize his honesty or wonder if he left

anything out, but he admits to snorting cocaine and dealing with drugs in his early teenage

years; someone who is not honest would not have shared this information with his readers.

By wooing the audience’s hearts through his stunning charisma and openness to harsh

realities about his life before presidency, Barack Obama discovers the true meaning of self

and embraces his own race.

Obama’s confusion about his identity; trapped between two races and cultures, has

allowed many social and psychological pressures to bombard him daily. His family

emphasized education so strongly that waking up at four ‘o clock in the morning to study

English before going to school at six was normal in Obama’s daily schedule. If Obama

wanted to grow into a human being, “You’re [he’s] going to need some values” (50). Values

such as perseverance amidst hardships play a huge role in Obama’s life in the beginning

section of the book. As Obama grows up, he is left with a mystery tale of his father. He

learns of his father’s outgoing and open nature, his boldness to speak to anyone, his

intellectual expertise, and his charisma. His father’s absence affected him during his early

years:

There was only one problem: my father was missing. He had left paradise, and
nothing that my mother or grandparents told me could obviate that single,
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unassailable fact. Their stories didn’t tell me why he had left. They couldn’t
describe what it might have been like had he stayed. Like the janitor, Mr.
Reed, or the black girl who churned up dust as she raced down a Texas road,
my father became a prop in someone else’s narrative. An attractive prop—the
alien figure with the heart of gold, the mysterious stranger who saves the town
and wins the girl—but a prop nonetheless. (Obama 26)

Obama learns the value of becoming a man without his father. He learns to be strong and

clever while making peace:

My stepfather Lolo said, "Men take advantage of weakness in other men.

They're just like countries in that way. The strong man takes the weak man's
land. He makes the weak man work in his fields. If the weak man's woman is
pretty, the strong man will take her. Which would you rather be? Better to be
strong. If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's
strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always.” (Obama 37)

We quickly transition from his early childhood to his mid-teen years as he nears his

graduation from high school and his departure to college. He has fought great inner turmoil

over the absence of his father, his separation from his mother as she pursues her further

education, and figuring out exactly what it means to be a young black man.

As he matures, he begins to undergo a transformation during his early studies at

Occidental College in Los Angeles. He has a political awakening as part of his own quest to

define himself, and begins to fine-tune that into a desire to volunteer and become an activist.

His interest in community activism continued as he went on to Columbia University, and

once he’d graduated and moved to Chicago. While living in Chicago, he begins to witness

corruption, destitution, and racism and is compelled to make a change. Obama “decided to

become a community organizer” (133), to pursue the many changes he wishes to see. Being a

community organizer takes Obama into people’s houses and families where he learns first

hand that the situation in Chicago is getting worse. Single parent families were already the

norm, racism already pervaded every aspect of black people’s existence, now drugs are

beginning to invade the inner city, the kids are “changing,” and most of all jobs are still
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scarce. Obama believes being, “black was to be the beneficiary of a great inheritance, a

special destiny; glorious burdens that only we [they] were strong enough to bear” (51).

A few years down the road, Obama visits Kenya for the first time. Obama has always

wondered about his cultural ties and heritage. When visiting Kenya in the last part of the

book, he truly realizes who he is as an African man living in America. For the first time, he

meets parts of his family who “look like him,” and he meets his paternal relatives. This part

of the book is moving, as Obama learns about his family, the Kenyan way of life, and most

importantly the sacrifices made by his father and grandfather that help him live a

comfortable life in the United States. He is appreciative that his “brilliant scholar, the

generous friend, the upstanding leader – my [his] father had been all those things” (220). But

Obama is also saddened because his father had been all those things, “All those things and

more, because except for that one brief visit in Hawaii, he had never been present to foil the

image…” (220). Obama fantasizes how his father might’ve been like during his troubled

years as a teenager. Obama goes from being not just an African man in a white country but

also the son of a migrant who put his son’s life before his own. At the end of the book,

Obama visits the graves of his grandfather and father, and Obama finally begins to realize all

the anguish, confusion, and grief he has experienced for so many years because his father’s

absence.

This book is a great read for anyone who is curious about Obama’s pre-presidential

life. For a person whose daily job does not include writing, Obama writes pretty well. At

times, this book can be a little “over-written” or verbose; sometimes even a little trite, but on

the whole, Obama conveys a really personable message that easily connects with readers.

This book is about “a boy’s search for his father, and through that, a search for workable

meaning for his life as a black American,” as mentioned on the back cover. As you read

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama, one will start to understand Obama; how he
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comes across as insightful, inquisitive, and sympathetic. His passion and optimistic heart for

“change” is obvious from the beginning of the book. This unusual autobiography offers

fascinating insight into what shaped the life of the man who is now the president of the

United States. An outsider economically and culturally – trapped between two cultures –

Obama channeled his anger and alienation into determination that changed neighborhoods,

and may well change the nation.