Everybody has origins - the more obscure, the harder it impacts you. Floundering rootless in a predominantly white society, Obama is compelled to look back to where he came from after hearing about the death of his estranged father who abandoned him as a child.
His fragmented childhood takes him from Hawaii to Indonesia to Chicago, eliciting his passionate search back to Kenya. He encounters his far-removed family, coming across the remote Luo, his tribe, slowly being consumed by the influence of the West and learns about his father's success and decline into decadence and pity. The proleptic way in which his father lost his roots through being so affluent compared to the rest of family and hence so different resonates with Obama as he struggles to identify his background. Led on by his fully Kenyan half-sister Aula, he discovers Kenya and learns about his origins and his father.
Like his father, Obama fell victim in his youth to the lure of drugs and alcohol. Dreams from my Father effectively conveys the monotony and hardships of social prejudices that Obama had to face and how drugs provided a superficial escape. The scenes which describe this depict how Obama essentially succumbed and was overwhelmed by the different ways in which he was treated and looked upon by the majority of people and how he was unknowing of who he was supposed to be. Was he meant to try to be like the white majority but always condemned to the periphery of their group, or to embrace the darker undesirable group into which Black Americans belonged to, shunted aside, resorting to alcohol, strengthening the contemporary stereotype?
Originally Obama tries to fit in unsuccessfully, not really understanding who he is, naturally gravitating to other black people attending university with him such as his friend Ray and yet subconsciously they move towards the less desirable mental remedies provided like drugs, his descent so similarly echoing his father’s perpetual fall. Obama however is saved by his epiphany, the realisation of how he is almost an outcast and how he is able to find something that he is able to do to help similar people in a ghetto - Altgeld and his later meeting with his family. This is reflected by what name he chooses to use: he used Barry when he was attempting to fit in with the white majority along with other variations, however when he fully accepts himself he changes his name to Barack. Ironically a similar attitude to outsiders is displayed further on in the story by the Kenyans who appear to treat outsiders with the same contempt.
Honest determination to complete a task is probably Obama’s most admirable quality in this story, whether it is his perseverance to improve the churches and society in Altgeld or his determination to uncover the truth about his father. However Obama was not always so honest. Another significant moment in the story is when Obama was in school and he was asked about his father. He made up an elaborate story portraying his father as a great warrior almost falling victim to his own deception, nearly convincing himself.
Despite his insubstantial contact with his father, Obama is still desperate to justify his father and make him to be a great man. However after meeting his father only once for just one month Obama understands what his father believes in and his father’s dreams which he himself adopts (hence the title) and initiating his understanding of his origins.
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