Family Background of Barack Obama
Dr. Keshab Chandra Mandal
E-Mail: mandalkeshab2013@gmail.com
In a
2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family:
"It's like a little mini-United Nations", he said. "I've got
relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like
Margaret Thatcher." Obama has a half-sister with whom he was raised, Maya
Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband and
seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family – six of them living.
Obama's mother was survived by her Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham, until
her death on November 2, 2008, two
days before his election to the Presidency. Obama also has roots in Ireland;
he met with his Irish cousins in Moneygall in May 2011. In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his mother's family history to
possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis,
President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil
War. Obama's great-uncle served in the 89th Division that overran
Ohrdurf,
the first of the Nazi concentration camps to be liberated by U.S. troops during World War II.
In
June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer
associate at the Chicago
law firm of Sidley & Austin. Michelle
Robinson was a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and a
practicing attorney at he law firm. She was a product of Chicago’s South Side
public school. Assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm,
Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial
requests to date. Robinson came from a working-class black family; Her
father Fraser Robinson, was a pump operator for the Chicago water department
and Mother, Marian Robinson, a bank employee; her brother Craig had excelled at
basketball and went to Princeton University, and she followed him there for her
undergraduate degree. Michelle Robinson, after some close
examination, agreed to date later that summer, and became engaged in 1991, and
were married on October 3, 1992. Before their marriage, Obama took Michelle to
Kenya. The pairs also visited to Barack’s grandparents in Hawaii.
However,
after their marriage Michelle and Barack Obama moved to Hyde Park,
located on Chicago's South Side. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann,
was born on July 4, 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha
("Sasha"), on June 10, 2001. The Obama daughters attended the private
University of Chicago Laboratory School. When they moved to Washington,
D.C., in January 2009, the girls started at
the private Sidwell
Friends School.
The Obamas have a Portuguese water dog named Bo, a gift from Senator Ted
Kennedy.
Applying
the proceeds of a book deal, the family moved in 2005 from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to a
$1.6 million house in neighboring Kenwood, Chicago. The purchase of an adjacent
lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign donor
and friend Tony Rezko attracted media attention because of Rezko's subsequent
indictment and conviction on political corruption charges that were unrelated
to Obama.
In December
2007, Money magazine estimated the
Obama family's net worth at $1.3 million. Their 2009 tax return showed a
household income of $5.5 million—up from about $4.2 million in 2007
and $1.6 million in 2005—mostly from sales of his books. Obama was a smoker.
This babit sometimes broke familial peace. Obama tried to quit smoking several
times, sometimes using nicotine replacement therapy. Michelle Obama said he
successfully quit in early 2010.
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