sat阅读材料 Dreams from My Father - Obama Autobiography

　　Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by United States President Barack Obama. It was first published in July 1995 as he was preparing to launch his political career, five years after being elected the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990.

　　The autobiographical narrative tells the story of the life of Obama up to his entry in Harvard Law School. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Obama, Sr. of Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, who had met as students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obamas parents separated when he was two years old and divorced in 1964. Obamas father went to Harvard to pursue his Ph. D, but he didnt have the money to take his family with him. After that, he returned to Africa to fulfill his promise to the continent. Obama formed an image of his absent father from stories told by his mother and her parents. He saw his father only one more time, in 1971, when Obama Sr. came to Hawaii for a months visit. The elder Obama died in a car accident in 1982.

　　After her divorce, Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an East-West Center student from Indonesia. The family moved to Jakarta. When Obama was ten, he returned to Hawaii under the care of his grandparents for the better educational opportunities available there. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, a private college-preparatory school, where he was one of only six black students at the mostly white school.

　　Obama attended Punahou School from the 5th grade until his graduation in 1979. Obama writes: For my grandparents, my admission into Punahou Academy heralded the start of something grand, an elevation in the family status that they took great pains to let everyone know. There he also met Ray , who introduced him to the African American community.

　　Upon finishing high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he enrolled at Occidental College, where he describes living a party lifestyle of drug and alcohol use. After two years at Occidental, he transferred to Columbia College at Columbia University, in Manhattan, New York City, where he majored in political science. Upon graduation, he worked for a year in business. He then moved to Chicago, working for a non-profit doing community organizing in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the citys South Side. Obama recounts the difficulty of the experience, as his program faced resistance from entrenched community leaders and apathy on the part of the established bureaucracy. It was during his time spent here that Obama first visited Chicagos Trinity United Church of Christ.

　　Before attending Harvard Law School, Obama decided to visit relatives in Kenya. He uses part of his experience there as the setting for the books final, emotional scene.

　　As well as relating the story of Obamas life, the book includes a good deal of reflection on his own personal experiences with race and race relations in the United States.

　　For SAT purpose, it is a litte easy. But from the culture learning perspective, it is a great autobiography for Chinese students.