Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Publisher
Crown Publishers
Publication Year
1995
ISBN
9781400082773
Pages
442 pages
Genre
memoir
Format
full length
Item Type
Nonfiction
Annotation
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey, first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.
Grade Level
9-12
Diversity Topics
Racial Diversity; Biracial; Interracial; biracial child; interracial parents
Main Character
adult male
Race/Ethnicities
African American / White
Family Formation
multigenerational
Awards
Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album
Keywords
reform; projects; adulthood; family; class; identity; poverty; Chicago; Hawaii; racial problems; self-discovery
Diversity Impact
direct
STARS Citation
Obama, Barack, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" (1995). Diverse Families. 99.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/diversefamilies/99