Dreams from My Father

2004 UK-published book cover

Typically, I try to avoid memoirs written by politicians. To me, most of what's out there seems doctored, another bid at election or reelection, a way to color the past in an attempt to keep reputations intact, or prove no wrongdoing while in office. As Winston Churchill once said, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." That's all the proof I need.

I balked originally at reading Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From My Father for these reasons. A copy sat on a shelf in my apartment all year, and I decided, only after getting favorable reviews from one of the teachers at school, that - as an American - I might as well read about my president and his past. In any case, I knew it would be better than Arnold Hautnah ("Arnold: Close-up"), a biography of the former "Governator" Schwarzenegger... It appears the former inhabitant of my flat had a penchant for biographies, which I do not possess.

I was surprised, in a way, and pleasantly so, with the story. President Obama's experiences as a boy, his situation growing up, were not only unique from any other US president to date, they were also unique for the time in which he was young (1960s in Hawaii) and for most Americans. Here's and example. For one of my classes this year, I dug up the statistic that  only 37% of Americans (114,464,041 people out of 307,006,550 from the latest census data) have passports, and only 25% of Americans have valid passports. In addition, only 9% of Americans speak a second (non-native) language fluently. Half of Europeans, according to a recent EU survey, speak two languages. I found these statistics (and more) at The Expeditioner, an online travel magazine.

Despite many dissenters who've recently popped up in the media (Mr. Donald Trump being just one of many examples), I find it refreshing that the current American president spent part of his youth in Indonesia, and had one immigrant parent. This shows that he has perspective that reaches beyond the United States, and an understanding of global affairs. I may be biased as an American living abroad, who got her degree in languages, but it seems to me that a global perspective in today's world is a very, very good thing. It doesn't mean being less patriotic, or less American, to have an understanding (if ever so slight), appreciation and respect for other cultures. Half of the problems in the United States come from a lack of respect for those different from ourselves - a lack of experience with foreign cultures, a disinterest in even trying to get to know anyone who is not just like you.

And here is where I found Dreams From My Father particularly moving. Not only do we get stories of the president's childhood, but as he grows, so do his reflections about race, culture, identity, belonging, the American Dream, his father. What it means to be a black man in America. His reflections become less about him and more philosophical, even spiritual. He talks about his quest to belong, from elementary school days in Honolulu where he looks for acceptance from his father in their one and only encounter, to confused party-monster evenings at Occidental where he admits dabbling in drugs (a phase he quickly grew out of), to community organizing in Chicago's South Side, to going back to his roots in Kenya. 

W.E.B. DuBois in 1946

In a class I took on diversity in the classroom, as part of teacher training, we read W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folk which, although dated, was a particularly enlightening read on race relations in the 1900s. In particular, the interviews of former slaves struck me as particularly pertinent. This is part of American history which is less discussed. Of course, everyone knows what Slavery was, but in your average American history classroom, far more attention is paid to the intricacies of the Battles of Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg, to Lincoln's speeches and Grant's horse, than to the end of slavery in the 1860s. In fact, your average American history classroom mentions slaves all of twice: the first slaves who come from Africa in the 1700s and the Emancipation Proclamation. In short, much of this part of history is never explained. Americans ignore the shameful bits of history, hoping they will just go away if no one talks about them.

This is quite the opposite in Austria. Nowadays (though this used not to be the case) the Holocaust, Nazism and World War II are openly discussed in classrooms, as a way to enlighten students, to explain the perils and stupidity of prejudice, which is still rife in many parts of Europe, unfortunately - mostly toward newer immigrants from Africa, Turkey and Southern Europe (the former Yugoslavia particularly). How can a nation as a whole relate such atrocities to its people? Ignorance and blatant honesty are two options, but there must be more, with integrating acceptance into the cultural pathos the end result.

As I followed the story of Barack Obama's return to his roots in Kenya, meeting his family, discovering ever more pieces to the puzzle that was his father, I came to realize that many Americans who travel abroad are looking for this same thing: a place to belong, culturally. A place to call home. A return to the homeland, to the ancestors. Not everyone needs this, of course. I suppose I'm getting this from a number of other American teaching assistants who learned German in the first place because their ancestors immigrated however long ago from Central Europe, be it Austro-Hungary, Germany, Bohemia, Switzerland.

I guess that was part of my idea, too. But after living in Austria for nine months, I don't feel any real need to find my family roots, to explore genealogical pasts, retrieve distant cousins from Bavaria or East Prussia, as I probably could if I looked hard enough. It does make me a bit sad when some of  my students ask, "What is the American national costume?" The Austrian one, of course, is the Tracht consisting of Lederhosen or a Dirndl, Alpine hats and sturdy shoes, varying by region in slight ways. I find the question funny - of course, I could always answer "Jeans and a T-shirt" which seems to be the American national dress code. But I always reply that we don't have one. Some people wear the national costume of their ancestors, but since over 90% of Americans stem from immigrant backgrounds (at one point or another, be it one or seven generations removed), and the USA has such a huge population compared to Austria, it would be impossible to categorize us all as one thing or another.

Going back to DuBois: mixed-raced himself of almost equal parts European and African descent, even he found solace in Europe where none could be found in America, saying at one point that he was treated with more respect as a scholar in Nazi Germany than from white American colleagues. Such remarks today are inflammatory, one of the reasons DuBois has fallen out of favor, even to an extend with the NAACP, which he helped found. However, I think this shows the fervent human need to belong. To be accepted, respected, and acknowledged. President Obama, in his travelling to Kenya to confront his father's ghost, recognized his need to unite the bifurcated parts of his being: his white American half, and his black African half.

The true power of the memoir is the acknowledgement that with an understanding of one's self, of identity and one's place in the world, fulfillment and happiness are more easily attained. I'm not going to go into politics or anything, or conjecture that Barack Obama feels fulfilled. That's really not my place - I've never even met the guy. But his ability to take something so personal and apply it broadly is the real power of the memoir.

As the oracle at Delphi said, "Know thyself." Sometimes more easily said than done.