Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Joe Miller, "Does Obama have Kenyan Citizenship?" , Fact Check, August 29, 2008, quoted in part on to Barack Obama, Sr. (1936–1982; born in Oriang' Kogelo of Rachuonyo North District, Kenya) and Stanley Ann Dunham, known as Ann (1942–1995; born in Wichita, Kansas, United States).
Obama spent most of his childhood years in Honolulu, where his mother attended the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Obama had a close relationship with his maternal grandparents. In 1965, his mother remarried to Lolo Soetoro from Indonesia. Two years later, Dunham took Obama with her to Indonesia to reunite him with his stepfather. In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to attend Punahou School, from which he graduated in 1979.
As a young adult, Obama moved to the contiguous United States, where he was educated at Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School. In Chicago, Obama worked at various times as a community organizer, lawyer, lecturer and senior Lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School in the city's South Side, and later published his memoir Dreams from My Father before beginning his political career in 1997 as a member of the Illinois Senate.
Childhood years
Parents' background; life in Hawaii Barack Obama's parents met in 1960 while they were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obama's father, Barack Obama, Sr., who was the university's first foreign student from an African nation, (online) hailed from Oriang' Kogelo, Rachuonyo North District, in the Nyanza Province of western Kenya.Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 9–10. Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, known as Ann, was born in Wichita, Kansas. The couple were married on the Hawaiian island of Maui on February 2, 1961. (online) ("Raising Obama" cover story) (print) Barack Hussein Obama II, named for his father, was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961, at the old Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital at 1611 Bingham Street (a predecessor of the Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children at 1319 Punahou Street). Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital, 1611 Bingham St., 110 beds.
She did not know Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, while they were in labor together on August 4, 1961, at the old Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital. The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin announced the birth.Hoover (2008), "Obama's Hawaii homes". Note: His parents' address was listed as 6085 Kalanianaʻole Highway, then the home of his maternal grandparents, with whom the young family lived.
Soon after their son's birth, while Obama's father continued his education at the University of Hawaii, Ann Dunham took the infant to Seattle, Washington, where she took classes at the University of Washington from September 1961 to June 1962. She and young Barack lived in an apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Note: Dunham and Obama lived at 516 13th Ave. E., Capitol Hill, Seattle. Obama, Sr. left the state in June 1962, after graduating from the University of Hawaii with a B.A. in economics. He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts that Autumn for graduate study in economics at Harvard University.
Ann Dunham returned to Honolulu with her son, and in January 1963 resumed her undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii. In January 1964, Dunham filed for divorce, which was not contested. Barack Obama, Sr. later graduated from Harvard University with an A.M. in economics and in 1965 returned to Kenya.
During her first year back at the University of Hawaii, Dunham met Lolo Soetoro.Maraniss (2012).p. 195 He was one year into his American experience, after two semesters at the Manoa campus and a summer on the mainland at Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin, when he encountered Dunham, who was then an undergraduate majoring in anthropology. A surveyor from Indonesia, Soetoro had come to Honolulu in September 1962 on an East–West Center grant to study at the University of Hawaii.Maraniss (2012), p. 195: Soetoro passed through immigration at Honolulu Airport on September 18, 1962. He earned an M.A. in geography in June 1964.
Dunham and Soetoro were married on March 15, 1965, on the island of Molokai. The couple returned to Honolulu with 3-year-old Barack to live as a family.Maraniss (2012), p. 197 Note: a justice of the peace married Dunham and Soetoo on March 15, 1965, on the little island of Molokai, which was part of Maui County. In Honolulu, they lived at an apartment at 3326 Oahu Avenue. After two one-year extensions of his J-1 visa, Soetoro returned to Indonesia on June 20, 1966.Maraniss (2012), p. 209: "My husband left June 20, 1966 and went back to Djakarta and is working for the Indonesian government conducting a topographical survey," she wrote. Dunham and her son moved in with her parents at their house. She continued with her studies, earning a B.A. in anthropology in August 1967, while Barack attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School.Hoover (2008),"Obama's Hawaii homes". Note: Her parents in 1966 lived at 2234 University Avenue in Honolulu.
Indonesia
In 1967, Obama and his mother moved to Jakarta (known as Djakarta at the time) to rejoin his stepfather. The family initially lived in a newly built neighborhood in the Menteng Dalam administrative village of the Tebet subdistrict in South Jakarta for two and a half years, while Soetoro worked on a topographic survey for the Indonesian government. Note: They lived in a rented house at 16 Kyai Haji Ramli Txsdyt56yengah StreetObama (1995, 2004), p. 32. From January 1968 to December 1969, Obama's mother taught English and served as an assistant director of the U.S. government-subsidized Indonesia-America Friendship Institute, while Obama attended the Indonesian-language Santo Fransiskus Asisi (St. Francis of Assisi) Catholic School around the corner from their house for 1st, 2nd, and part of 3rd grade.
Obama's mother met a transgender person named Evie (who was known as Trudi at the time), at a cocktail party in 1969. Dunham was so impressed by Evie's beef steak and fried rice that she offered her a job in the family home. It did not take long before Evie was also caretaker for then eight-year-old "Barry", as Obama was often referred to as then, and his baby sister Maya. As a caretaker, she also spent time playing with Obama and bringing him to and from school, which she continued to do for about two years.Associated Press, "Obama's transgender former nanny living in fear in Indonesia" , The Guardian, Tuesday 6 March 2012 (accessed 7 April 2016). See also the follow-up story "Barack Obama's transgender former nanny finds fame and a job offer" , The Guardian, Thursday 8 March 2012.
In 1970, Soetoro took a new job at higher pay in Union Oil Company's government relations office. Google Translate's English translation Obama (1995, 2004), p. 46. Note: and the family moved two miles north to 22 Taman Amir Hamzah Street in the Matraman Dalam neighborhood in the Pegangsaan administrative village of the Menteng subdistrict in Central Jakarta. From January 1970 to August 1972, Obama's mother taught English and was a department head and a director of the Institute of Management Education and Development. Obama attended the Indonesian-language government-run Besuki School, one-and-half miles east in the exclusive Menteng administrative village, for part of 3rd grade and for 4th grade. By this time, he had picked up on some Indonesian in addition to his native English. He also joined the Cub Scouts.
In the summer of 1970, Obama returned to Hawaii for an extended visit with his maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. His mother had also arranged an interview for possible admission to the Punahou School in Honolulu, one of the top private schools in the city.Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 54, 58.Maraniss (2012), pp. 243, 265. On August 15, 1970, Dunham and Soetoro celebrated the birth of their daughter, Maya Kassandra Soetoro.
Return to Hawaii
In mid-1971, Obama moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend Punahou School starting in fifth grade.Hoover (2008), "Obama's Hawaii homes". Note: Obama lived with his grandparents at the Punahou Circle apartments at 1617 S. Beretania Street in Honolulu.Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 58–59. In December 1971, Obama was visited for a month by his father, Barack Obama Sr., from Kenya. It was the last time Obama would see his father. This was followed by his mother visiting her son and parents in Honolulu from late 1971 to January 1972.
In 1972, Dunham returned to Hawaii, bringing along the young Maya, Obama's half-sister. Dunham started graduate study in anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. From sixth grade through eighth grade at Punahou, Obama lived with his mother and Maya.Maraniss (2012), pp. 279–286.Hoover (2008), "Obama's Hawaii homes". Note: Dunham and her children lived in an apartment at 1839 Poki Street in Honolulu.
Obama's mother completed her coursework at the University of Hawaii for an M.A. in anthropology in December 1974. reprinted by: After three years in Hawaii, she and Maya returned to Jakarta in August 1975,Maraniss (2012), p. 285. where Dunham completed her contract with the Institute of Management Education and Development and started anthropological fieldwork. Obama chose to stay with his grandparents in Honolulu to continue his studies at Punahou School for his high school years.Mendell (2007), p. 43.
In his memoir Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother's middle class family. His knowledge about his African father, who returned once for a brief visit in 1971, came mainly through family stories and photographs.See also:Obama (1995), pp. 5–11, 62–71. In August 2006, Obama flew his wife and two daughters from Chicago to join him in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.See also: Of his early childhood, Obama writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind." The book describes his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.Obama (1995, 2004), Chapters 4 and 5.See also: He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind".In Dreams from My Father, Obama writes: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it."Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 93–94.For analysis of the political impact of the quote and Obama's more recent admission that he smoked marijuana as a teenager ("When I was a kid, I inhaled."), see: Obama was also a member of the "choom gang", a self-named group of friends that spent time together and occasionally smoked marijuana. Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 93–94. Maraniss (2012), pages with "choom gang". for analysis of the political impact of the quote and Obama's more recent admission that he smoked marijuana as a teenager ("When I was a kid, I inhaled"), see:
Obama has said that it was a serious mistake. At the Saddleback Civil Presidential Forum, Barack Obama identified his high-school drug use as his greatest moral failure. Obama has stated he has not used any illegal drugs since he was a teenager. reprinted by: National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which wasreprinted by: Mark Greer's Media Awareness Project (MAP) d/b/a DrugSense (Irvine, Calif.)