Dreams from My Father

I happened to see this Book at the bookshelf corner while looking for the last copy of Russian Roulette

During President Obama’s last few years in office, his book Dreams of My Father was an all time Bestseller deficting his growing up years in Kenya, Indonesia and Hawaii. It was the same time when then candidate Trump started his campaign about Obama not being an American. The question of citizenship kept popping up from this candidate throughout.

Through his book, Obama explores his heritage as a Black American and what it means to his life up to maintaining his heritage and yet be equal to everyone when he become President in 2008. Obama’s legacy as the first minority non caucasian President was a turning point of history.  Till this day, some people still try to question it happened hence is also part of the contention why America will take a while to even elect a Woman Madame President.

Obama’s journey from happy, race-less boy running barefoot through the muddy back streets of Jakarta to perplexed adolescent and student in Honolulu, Los Angeles and New York, and to eager but ignorant and, eventually, reasonably productive community organiser on Chicago’s South Side depicts life of immigrants who came to the US young or in their teenage years. The ability to adapt to change living in the US while keeping one’s heritage alive is what immigrants depict. The ability to blend with both cultures and lifestyles is really the most important structure to living at present in American society.

Someone who never gained such experience will never undertand the immigrant life in the USA. As such the superficial thinking of the bad criminals are more predominant to associate them with undocumented aliens. The reality is that crime is integrated to society and people who commits any crime can be anyone regardless of rare, culture, gender or identity.

Dreams from My Father tells the story of Obama’s struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and white American mother—a struggle that takes him from the American heartland to the ancestral home of his great-aunt in the tiny African village of Alego. This is an example of the same questions and realities of immigrants living in America.

With Russian Roulette, For more than a year now, journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn have been devoted to covering the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.   On Trump’s interest in meeting Vladimir Putin during his 2013 trip to Moscow, On how the project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow influenced Trump’s views on Russia. Hence the book mostly talks on connecting the dots between Russian the 2016 Presidential elections.

Both books are bestsellers yet Obama’s book reprintedin 2007 and Russisn Roulette was just published a few weeks ago. I’ll leave it to the reader and book critics the comparison the historical perspectives of both books.

Alex Esguerra

ADLE International