Dreams from My Father

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Chandra McNeil-Johnson

HIST 350.101

Dreams from My Father

By: Barack Obama

March 1, 2011

Dr. Hendricks

        The #1 New York Times bestseller, Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama is the book that I chose for my book report.  I chose this book because it is one of the books written in the last ten years that I feel every African American should read.  This book gives personal accounts of the struggle of an interracial (black African & white American ancestry) male that was able to find his identity and become the 44th President of the United States. Dreams from My Father takes us into the inner turmoil felt by interracial children and the relational problems it causes for those children when they become adults.  This is also a great book for takes a look at the African Diaspora, as Mr. Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr. traveled from African to The United States to further his education at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu where he met and married Barack’s mother Ann Dunham.  This happens to define the African Diaspora perfectly.  According to a web-encyclopedia, African Diaspora is defined as the the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world - predominantly to the Americas, then later to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe.

        Barack Obama is qualified to write this book because it is true accounts of his life and the effect his father had on his life.  Unfortunately, Barack did not have a relationship with his father.  Most of the information he received about his father came from family members.  There were stories told by his grandparents, mother, half sisters and brothers in Africa, and friends of the family that allowed him to have the background he needed to write the book as well as the insight he needed to be able to figure out his identity.  The book basically started as memoirs that Barack wrote while he was trying to “find himself”.  Because he is an interracial male living in the United States he has had some struggles with discrimination from both blacks and whites.  He has gone back and forth trying to decide which race (black or white) he identifies with the most and he realizes that he is not the only people having these struggles.  

The main purpose and aim of the book is to provide the reader with some insight into who President Barack Obama is and how he became who he is.  The book details how he used the things he learned about his father to figure out who he is, why he feels the way he feels, and how he developed the dreams he has for the betterment of society, thus the title, “Dreams from My Father”.  The book takes a look at his struggles surrounding identity because of cultural and ethnic mixtures. Being the son of an African father and an American mother is confusing enough but if the father is black African and the mother is white American that is doubly confusing.  Dreams from My Father is based on journals and oral accounts of Barack’s family.  I am sure there are several interracial people that want to read the intimate details of Mr. Obama’s life to see how he dealt with certain situations that occurred because of his racial combination. The fact that the information found in the book is factual and actual accounts of these situations and how they were dealt with makes the President a reliable authority on the struggles of interracial males living in the United States, Hawaii, and Indonesia.