Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Like her brother Obama Sr., Sarah was always highly intelligent and independent, but she was forced to rely upon a series of husbands to support herself and her child. After the death of her first husband, Sarah insisted that Obama Sr. should support her instead, and she resented the competing claims for support from Kezia, Obama Sr.'s first wife, and her children. Zeituni becomes uncomfortable when she tells Obama that there may well be some truth to the idea that Obama Sr. was not the father of some of Kezia's children, including Bernard.

Obama silently observes several Kenyan people and transposes Bernard's face over theirs. He wonders if they are his kin as well and wonders what he owes them. Zeituni, sensing his mood, tells him that Obama Sr. had a big heart and struggled with the same sense of responsibility as well. Obama Sr. never learned to say “no” to family members who imagined that he was more economically secure than he was.

Despite Obama Sr.'s generosity, none of these people helped him when he fell out of favor with Kenyatta. These same people asked for help again once Obama Sr. was back in favor. Zeituni tells Obama that he needs to learn from his father's example: "If you have something, then everyone will want a piece of it. So you have to draw the line somewhere. If everyone is family, no one is family. Your father, he never understood this, I think," she says (337).

Several days later, Obama is mistaken for his deceased half-brother, David, by an old acquaintance of the family. This incident leads Obama to ask why he has not seen Ruth, the white woman Obama Sr. married after studying at Harvard and mother of David and Mark.

Auma tells him Ruth became estranged from the family after her divorce from Obama Sr., re-married, and raised the children as foreigners. Mark sided with her, but David re-connected with the family before his death and lived with Roy, Auma's brother. When David died, Ruth blamed the other Obama children.

Obama and Auma receive an invitation to visit Ruth days later. Auma warns Obama that Ruth's motivation for the visit is a desire to compare Obama to Mark. They accept the invitation, however, and go to Ruth's home, which is located in an expensive neighborhood.

The visit goes just as poorly as Auma predicted. The conversation with Mark is stilted, and Ruth takes every opportunity to brag about her son and insult Obama Sr. During the visit, Ruth shares a photo album full of pictures of Obama Sr., Ruth, and their children as a family. Obama is envious at first because the pictures seem to represent the fantasy family life he never had. Obama is sad after the visit and remarks to Auma that Ruth still seems to have some attachment to Obama Sr.

Mark and Obama go out to eat later that week. During the lunch, Obama learns that Mark feels no attachment to their father or African and Kenyan culture. He sees his African roots and family history as "baggage" (344) to be left behind. He refuses to engage in self-reflection about who he is with regards to his past.

Later that day, Auma remarks bitterly that Mark is the only Obama Sr. child with an uncontested legal claim to Obama Sr.'s estate.

After dinner, Obama talks with two Masai guardsmen who tell him that they have completed the traditional rites to become Masai warriors by killing a lion. The possibility of dying during this rite gets the entire group talking about the afterlife and debating whether Christianity was a force for good or a force for colonialism in Africa. As everyone heads to bed and Francis sings a hymn in Kikuyu, Obama concludes that each person he has met so far is brave in some way and that "[h]onest, decent men and women with attainable ambitions, and the determination to see those ambitions through" (358) like them is all that Africa needs.

When Obama and Auma return from safari two days later, they find that Roy has arrived earlier than expected from Washington, D.C. The family converges at Jane's place for a feast to celebrate Roy's arrival. Roy is accompanied by Amy, his Kenyan girlfriend.

After dinner, Roy tells Auma and Obama that he intends to start an import-export business to sell Kenyan curios in the United States. Auma is disappointed that the sample items Roy shows them look so cheap and chides Bernard for not intervening to prevent Roy from overpaying for the items. Roy has always been impetuous, Auma tells Obama. The business and his new relationship with Amy are just the most recent examples of this tendency.

Several members of the family go out to a club to dance after dinner. At their table, Amy tells Auma that she and Roy are planning to marry. Zeituni shares memories of going dancing with Obama Sr. as her partner when they were young. When they all dance later, Obama is reminded of the look of liberation on Obama Sr.'s face when he danced in Toot and Gramps's apartment all those years ago during the visit to Hawaii.

The joy Obama feels is interrupted when a fight breaks out between two men. When he moves to intervene, Roy stops him and warns him that he has no idea how bad a night in a Nairobi jail is. Obama asks Roy when he was in jail. Roy tells Obama that he and David went out to a club the night that David died. Roy got into an argument with the husband of a woman with whom he flirted that night. The police arrested and jailed Roy because he had no identification papers on him.

David came by later to ask for the keys to the motorcycle the two had ridden to the club; David wanted to pick up Roy's papers from home. David died that night, presumably while riding home to get the papers. Obama tries to comfort Roy by telling him David's death was not his fault, but the conversation is interrupted when Amy grabs Roy so that he can dance with her.

Once they arrive, Obama meets his uncles Yusef and Sayid, who take him to the family compound, nicknamed "Home Squared" by the rest of the family. Once there, Granny, the third wife of Hussein Onyango, welcomes Obama. Obama is fascinated by the photos posted on the wall, including one of Akuma, another of Hussein Onyango, and one of a Burmese woman—a wife of Hussein Onyango and white in appearance—who looks exactly like Ann Dunham. The family has tea, and Granny (through Auma, who interprets for her) tells Obama that she has not heard from her son Omar in a year. Omar is in America, so Granny asks Obama to tell Omar that she wants nothing from him except for him to visit her. Roy takes Obama outside to see the graves of their grandfather and father. Obama Sr.'s grave still lacks a headstone.

Every event that day is freighted with significance for Obama. As he engages with his family, Obama thinks, "[A] circle was beginning to close, so that I might finally recognize myself as I was, here, now, in one place" (377). When Obama explains that he speaks little Luo because he has been so busy, she chides him, and he feels slightly less at home.

That night, Auma tells him the low moaning he hears outside are reputed to be the sound of night-runners, dangerous warlocks who would steal livestock from people sometimes. The only person who was not afraid of them in the old days was their grandfather. The next day, Obama's uncles take him and Auma on the tour of the family's fertile lands. When Yusef complains that the land is unimproved because his countrymen do not understand modern methods of improving the land, Sayid looks on in disapproval.

Sayid takes Obama and Auma to see an older woman who complains that many young men leave for the city, and those left behind suffer as a result. She and other people Obama meets ask if he can spare anything. Auma is shocked by this begging, something unheard of in the past. Sayid tells them that the idea of poverty was brought to Alego by people coming back from the city. Sayid also tells them that while Yusuf talks about making changes to help the people, he does little more than help Granny out by doing chores.

As Obama reflects on this series of exchanges, he acknowledges that poverty is objectively real but that "perhaps" the people of Alego and Altgeld "could fight off the notion of their own helplessness" (381). Sayid tells them how tight the job market it is and how dependent success is on knowing or bribing the right person. Sayid believes the only way to make it is to start a business. Obama Sr. never had anything of his own. Perhaps it is better to forget about the past, Sayid says, as the family's fight over Obama Sr.'s estate shows.

Obama accompanies Sayid to see Hussein Onyango's grave in Kendu Bay, located several hours away. While there, they also see Abo, another Obama sibling. Abo bears a striking resemblance to Bernard in physical appearance. Obama also notes with some disquiet that Abo has the red eyes of an addict and the manner of "someone who realizes early in life that he has been wronged" (384). Abo looks like many young men Obama has encountered in Chicago.

Roy is there as well, and Obama has the chance to meet Billy and Salina, two more cousins. Over their meal, Billy tells Obama that he was much closer to Obama Sr. when he was growing up because his own father, in keeping with a sad family tradition, was not particularly good with his own child.

Later that night, Obama and his siblings drink with their grand-uncle, and the mix of sounds and cries reminds him of voices just like those back in the South Side of Chicago. Sayid manages to extract Obama and Bernard later that night, but he is unable to get Roy, who is afraid of disappointing his relatives, to leave.Sayid tells them that this habit of overdoing it and being afraid of what other people thought of him were exactly what led to Obama Sr.'s undoing.

Granny met Akuma during the early years of the marriage between Akuma and Hussein Onyango, and it was clear to her even then that Akuma was unhappy.When Hussein Onyango went to serve as a cook in the British Army during World War II, Granny came to stay with Akuma, whose life was easier with her husband gone.

When Hussein Onyango came back after the war, he moved his family to Alego, where there was less crowding and more land. Helima wanted to stay near her family in Kendu, so she refused to leave. Akuma eventually went along with her husband's decision, however. Using the methods that he learned from the Europeans, their grandfather transformed the bush into a prosperous farm within a year and sold his cattle. Although Alego was still suspicious of his strange ways, his generosity, knowledge of herbs, and successful contest with a shaman who threatened to kill one of them won them over eventually.

Despite Hussein Onyango's success, Akuma grew increasingly unhappy. Akuma ran away with her baby, the third child. Before she left, Akuma told Sarah, age 12, that she and Obama Sr., age 9,could follow her when they were old enough to make the trip; weeks after Akuma left, Sarah and Obama Sr. tried to make the trip to Kendu to reunite with her mother, but the children got lost. They were in bad shape when their father retrieved them. Akuma married another man and eventually moved away. Granny effectively became the two children's mother. Sarah never took to Granny, but Obama Sr. loved her as a mother.

Hussein Onyango was just as harsh as a father as he was as a husband. While Sarah was more like him, Obama Sr. was willful and frequently endured the most of his father's disapproval and the beatings that resulted. Nevertheless, their grandfather was proud of how well Obama Sr. did in school and willingly paid his fees. As the girl of the family, Sarah received no such support, despite her intelligence. On the strength of his intelligence, Obama Sr. did well in high school despite his refusal to attend classes regularly.

Kenya was in the midst of a growing anti-colonialist movement in those days. Although Obama Sr. was sympathetic to the efforts of KANU, the independence party, to expel the British, his father always told him that Africans lacked the character and cooperativeness needed to band together and remove the British from power. Hussein Onyango was falsely accused of being a KANU supporter and placed in a detention camp, however. When he came back, he was dirty, and his body was broken from torture.

Meanwhile, Obama Sr. was expelled from school for misbehavior. A disappointed Hussein Onyango found a lowly clerk's job for Obama Sr. on the coast, in Mombasa. Obama Sr. was fired for insubordination and had to take a job with a lower salary. He lied about the lower salary to his father, who discovered the untruth when he examined Obama Sr.'s wage book. Hussein Onyango beat Obama Sr. and told him he would never amount to anything.

After Obama Sr. was arrested while attending a KANU meeting, he decided to turn his life around. He found another job but lost it as well. He met Kezia and decided to marry her. He was able to get a dowry to pay her family after other members of the family convinced his father that it would be shameful not to do so. Obama Sr. continued to struggle even as his family grew.

Obama Sr.'s fortunes finally improved when two white women, teachers who were affiliated with a church, convinced him to complete a correspondence course that would qualify him for advanced study. He passed the course but had no means of attending university. The two American women encouraged him to write to American universities to ask for admission and funding, and the University of Hawaii answered. Obama Sr. left Kezia and his family with Granny and departed for Hawaii.

When Obama Sr. wrote to tell his family that he planned to marry Ann Dunham, Hussein Onyango disapproved because he knew the young woman would never come back to Kenya with him. Granny tells Obama that race had nothing to do with it; their grandfather asked Obama Sr. to have Ann's father to come to him to discuss the matter. Obama Sr. married Ann anyway, so his father threatened to have his visa revoked. When Obama Sr. finally did come home, just as Hussein Onyango had predicted, Ann refused to come with him.

Soon after Obama Sr.'s return to Kenya, Ruth, who followed him there from Harvard, came to Kenya and demanded that Obama Sr. marry her. Ruth made Obama Sr. leave Kezia, and he took Auma and Roy with him to live with Ruth. Obama Sr. was living in Nairobi by then and would dispense lavish gifts when he came home. He still never managed to reconcile with his father, who soon died.

Granny then shows Obama the few belongings she still has from his father and grandfather, including Hussein Onyango's colonial work and wage booklet, copies of letters that Obama Sr. wrote to American colleges, and the letters of recommendation from the two white teachers.

Obama goes outside and thinks, "This was it […]My inheritance. I rearranged the letters in a neat stack and set them under the registry book" (427). Obama imagines the determination of Hussein Onyango in the face of his family's ridicule, the fading of that determination as he ages, a young Obama Sr. running away with Sarah to find Akuma, Obama Sr. typing out the letters to the American colleges, and his disappointment when he failed to escape his father's predictions after all.

Obama regrets the failure of each generation of fathers to break the silence, tell their sons about their own uncertainties and challenges, and share the importance of "faith in other people" (429) in overcoming these challenges. Obama sits between his grandfather and father's graves and cries until Bernard and Godfrey, one of the boys of the family, go on a walk with him.

Obama spends two more weeks in Kenya, time enough to take a family photo, see Roy off back to Washington, and surreptitiously visit George (the youngest Obama child) without the permission of the boy's mother one day at school. Obama also has the chance to visit Dr. Rukia Odero, a history teacher and friend of Obama Sr. She tells Obama that many black Americans leave Africa with a sense of disappointment because they fail to understand how many cultures (English and Indian, for example) have contributed to Africa's culture. There is nothing traditionally authentic or culturally pure about Africa, she argues.Odero notes that defensiveness towards white people frequently leads Africans to cling to traditions that have outlived their usefulness.

Obama ends his time in Kenya with a trip to Mombasa with Auma. Obama then moves to the present moment (six years after the events recounted during the trip to Kenya). During the intervening years, Obama completed law school and learned about both the conservative and loftier aspects of the law. His time in law school affirmed his faith that ultimately, there is still reason to hope for justice and community. In keeping with that belief, Obama’s law practice has mostly churches, community groups, and the occasional plaintiff in a discrimination case as clients. He is concerned, however, about the continuing signs of decay he sees in the South Side and rising conflict with young people.

Obama now has a wife, Michelle, who reminds him of Toot because of her practicality, and she is a needed counterbalance to Obama’s tendency to be a dreamer like his father. Michelle won over his family in both Hawaii and Kenya when they visited. Just like the South Side, Kenya has seen a steady increase in unemployment, and many of Obama’s siblings are unemployed. Obama’s cousin Billy died of AIDS, while both Gramps and Michelle’s fathers died and thus missed Obama and Michelle’s multicultural wedding ceremony, which was performed by Reverend Wright at Trinity.

Roy now goes by “Abongo,” his Luo name, and has converted to Islam. He continues to make concrete progress on his business plan. He sometimes engages in heavy-handed lectures about black pride and the need to reject the ways of whites, but Obama believes he is coming to a more complex understanding of life. At Obama’s wedding, Abongo claimed Ann as a second mother and toasted all the loved ones not there with them. Obama remarks in closing that he is “the luckiest man alive” (442).