UW News

November 19, 2009

Celebrating an uncommon Common Book, written by a president-to-be

A Common Book event at the UW usually means an appearance by the chosen book’s author. But this year that proved difficult, given that the Common Book is Dreams from My Father, written by Barack Obama. Since he’s now the President of the United States, it was a little bit difficult to get on his busy schedule.


Stepping into the breach for the event, scheduled for Dec. 1, are three professors for whom Obama’s journey holds special significance. Luis Fraga, associate vice provost for faculty advancement, is a Latino who studies the politics of race and ethnicity; Christopher Parker, assistant professor of political science, is an African American who specializes in African American politics; and Ralina Joseph, assistant professor of communication, shares with Obama a mixed-race heritage and studies multicultural identity.


The three plan a casual evening, beginning at 7 p.m. in 130 Kane. Each will share thoughts about the book and then open up to questions and comments from the audience.


Dreams from My Father was published in 1995, before Obama entered politics. He writes in the preface to the second, 2004 edition: “The opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. In the wake of some modest publicity, I received an advance from a publisher and went to work with the belief that the story of my family, and my efforts to understand that story, might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identity — the leaps through time, the collision of cultures — that mark our modern life.”


The resulting 400-plus page book is personal and engaging. “I was just overwhelmed with its honesty and transparency,” Fraga said, “and I thought only someone who didn’t think he would ever be in public life would write so honestly about so many different parts of his life…. Reading it after he was a public figure, I found it so refreshing to be able to have a window to perhaps understand something very important about a public official.”


The book tells the story of Obama’s life, from his birth in Hawaii to a white American woman and an African man who had come there to study, to his search for his African roots in Kenya after his father’s death. He had been raised by his mother and grandparents and barely knew his father. In the book, Obama is, as the jacket copy says, searching for “a workable meaning to his life as a black American.”


That, Fraga said, makes the book particularly appropriate for its audience of students, especially first year students: “What does undergraduate studies do?” he asked. “It gives you opportunities for thinking creatively about issues of identity, which are very much a part of the book. So we want to try to bring that excitement, bring that sense of empowerment to the students as they use the book to reflect on their own life experience.”


Fraga said leaders of Freshman Interest Groups have asked their groups to submit favorite passages from the book and questions they would like the panel to address. Those questions will be combined with issues raised by him and his fellow panel members to form the substance of the program.


Fraga received the book as a gift from a former student four years ago, when Obama was in the Senate. His student was doing an internship in Washington, D.C., and had Obama inscribe the book: “To Professor Fraga, keep inspiring your students, Barack Obama.” Fraga finds it ironic that he is revisiting the book at a time that the student who gave it to him is on Obama’s staff.


Joseph said she too had read the book several years ago, but she saw it then through a particular lens. “My reading experience was tangled up with my research,” she said. “When I was reading, I was thinking of it in relation to my own writing. Did it confirm what I was saying? How did it compare to the work of others I’ve read?”


She added, however, that her work is very personal. “It isn’t this distant, objective thing.”


Parker didn’t read the book until recently, but he feels a kinship with Obama. “Like him I had an absentee father, and my grandmother was very involved in raising me,” Parker said. “I had to pull myself up to succeed, just as he did, and I also have two daughters.”


Parker was a graduate student at the University of Chicago when Obama was teaching in the law school there. He said he had buddies who were in Obama’s courses, who played pick-up basketball with him.


He said he wasn’t surprised when Obama won the presidency because “The University of Chicago is full of smart people with great ideas. The level of rigor there is rare.”


All three agree that identity, and especially racial identity, is at the heart of the book and something they want to discuss. Joseph said that some believe Obama’s election heralds a “post-racial” world, but she disagrees. “I am contesting notions of post-raciality because I believe it helps cement racial inequality,” she said.


Parker said he’d like to dispel stereotypes of African Americans. “I want students to know that Obama isn’t the only black man who has been successful in overcoming hardships to get where he is,” he said. “He isn’t just an exception to the rule.”


Fraga said he hopes the self reflection that Obama does in the book will encourage students to do some self reflection of their own. “I hope students will gain an understanding of how important it is for them to challenge themselves — as students and adults,” he said. “Then I’d like them to come away with a greater appreciation for political leadership generally, and the way in which political leadership and those who would be our political leaders are real people facing real challenges.”


Seating for the event is limited and registration is required. Go to www.uwcommonbook.org. There will be 100 seats available for nonstudents.