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About Me

I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas. My parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where my father was enrolled as a foreign student.When I was two years old, my parents divorced and my father returned to Kenya. My mother then married an Indonesian foreign student, moving to Jakarta with me when I was six years old. Four years later, I returned to Hawaii to live with my maternal grandparents.After high school, I studied for two years at Occidental College, before transferring to Columbia College of Columbia University. There i majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations. Upon graduation in 1983, I worked for one year at Business International Corporation before moving to Chicago and taking a job with a non-profit organization helping local churches organize job training programs for residents of poor neighborhoods.I then left Chicago for three years to study at Harvard Law School. I was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, obtaining my Juris Doctor degree, magna cum laude, in 1991. On returning to Chicago, I supported a voter registration drive, then worked for the civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill and Galland, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

My Interests

No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.Questioning the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War, Obama spoke of an enlisted Marine, Corporal Seamus Ahern from East Moline, Illinois, asking, "Are we serving Seamus as well as he was serving us?" He continued:When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.Finally he spoke for national unity:The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.