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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dreams from My Father, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Community
Fathers, Sons, and Manhood
Race and Identity
Storytelling and Truth
Summary
Analysis
At nine years old, Barack returns to Hawaii to live with Gramps and Toot. (Ann plans to come with Maya soon.) It’s thrilling to be back with them at first, but then Barack realizes that he’s basically living with strangers. Gramps and Toot have changed a lot; they now live in a high-rise apartment and Gramps is a life insurance agent, but his heart isn’t in it. Some nights, he tells Barack about his schemes to write poems or build a house, but evenings always end with a fight between Gramps and Toot. They fight because Toot makes more money than Gramps, a situation she never foresaw given that she has no college education. As she gets older, she confides in Barack that she’s proud of her work—but she secretly regrets not having led the life of a happy housewife.
Though Barack certainly still has lots of family members who care about him, his uncomfortable feelings about returning to live with Gramps and Toot speaks to the idea that even close family members like this can seem like strangers—especially to a young kid who doesn’t see his grandparents often. The fact that Toot waits until Barack is older to share why she and Gramps fought so much continues the memoir’s project of showing how stories change over time. By sharing, Toot not only helps Barack understand this time, but helps him understand Toot better too.
Themes
By the time Barack moves in, Gramps and Toot are no longer ambitious like they once were. They vote for Nixon in 1968 and get excited for new appliances. Barack is excited to start school and make friends, but Gramps and Toot are most excited that Barack will attend Punahou Academy. It’s prestigious and Gramps excitedly pores over the school catalog. Gramps takes Barack to school on the first day and his chumminess with other students mortifies Barack. Everyone titters when the teacher reads Barack’s full name—he goes by Barry—and asks what Kenyan tribe Barack’s father is from. Throughout the day, children are rude and racist to Barack. He goes straight to his room when he gets home and feels that he doesn’t belong.
For Gramps, Barack getting to go to Punahou represents an opportunity to better the entire family. Getting so excited about it is, in part, a way to try to get Barack excited about education and his future. But Barack also discovers right away that school isn’t just about academics; it’s about learning how to navigate a social structure that he discovers is racist. In this sense, Barack is caught between two worlds: he’s smart enough to be admitted to Punahou, but he simultaneously feels excluded for having dark skin.
Themes
Barack and the only other Black student, Coretta, carefully avoid each other until one day, they chase each other on the playground. As they laugh, children surround them and tease them about being boyfriend and girlfriend. Barack shouts at Coretta and pushes her, and they never speak again. He fixates on her disappointed look and knows he can’t fix it. After this, the other kids leave Barack alone. He feels like part of him is trampled, though he feels safe in his evening routines with Gramps and Toot. But one day, Toot reads a telegram announcing that Barack’s father is coming to stay for a month, over Christmas. Barack tells the boys at school that his father is a prince, which earns him social capital. He knows it’s a lie, but after his father arrives, Barack realizes that he prefers the distant version of his father.
School becomes difficult and anxiety inducing for Barack because of the racism he faces and his feeling that he’s different from the other students. With his meanness to Coretta, he is buying the respect of the playground bullies, which contradicts the values that his mom taught him and instead seems more aligned with Lolo’s pragmatic view of power. At home with his grandparents, his race doesn’t matter as much because he feels safe and loved, but the news that his father is coming to visit throws a wrench in the safety of those routines. The arrival of Barack’s father will mean that Barack will have to confront his race at home, an understandably difficult proposition.
Themes
Ann arrives a few weeks before Barack’s father and she tells Barack what to expect. His father has recently been in a car accident, and Barack has five brothers and a sister in Kenya. Ann also gives Barack a book on Kenya, which he finds uninteresting. At the library, Barack finds a book on East Africa, but the single paragraph he finds on the Luo—detailing that they live in mud huts, wear leather thongs across the crotch, and raise cattle—is disappointing. On the day his father arrives, Barack gets out of school early and loiters in the hall. Then, his father rings the doorbell and hugs him. The entire family sits in Gramps and Toot’s living room as Barack studies his father, who’s thinner than expected. His father gives Barack small wooden figurines before leaving to nap.
Though it’s somewhat unclear exactly what Barack finds so disappointing about the paragraph about the Luo (it could be, for instance, that there’s so little about them; or he could object to what the paragraph says about the Luo), it’s nevertheless clear that the library book doesn’t do a good job of describing the Luo culture. As Barack later learns, Luo culture is rich and varied—but the book paints the Luo as simple, provincial people who may seem not worth knowing. In this sense, the book may reaffirm Barack’s suspicions that being Black isn’t great.
Themes
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Over the next month, Barack accompanies Ann and his father around the islands. Barack notices that whenever his father speaks, Gramps and Toot seem to come alive again. This is fascinating. But after a few weeks, tension begins to build. One evening, when Barack tries to watch a cartoon Christmas special, his father sends him to his room to study—not just for school tomorrow, but for school after the holidays too. After this, Barack counts the days until his father leaves.
While the stories of his father’s overbearing nature might have seemed humorous before, now Barack actually has to experience what it’s like to live with him. While it’s admirable that Barack’s father cares so much about Barack’s education, Barack sees this as stepping on his individuality and trying to squash his development as a young American boy.
Themes
Later, Ann says in passing that Barack’s father is going to speak to Barack’s class later in the week. Barack is mortified and knows this will expose his lies to his classmates. He tunes out during his father’s presentation, but then notices that everyone is engrossed and excited. Afterward, people tell Barack his father is cool and Coretta looks satisfied. Two weeks later, Barack’s father leaves. He gives Barack a basketball for Christmas and right before he leaves, he finds two records of “the sounds of [Barack’s] continent.” He teaches Barack to dance and laughs with joy. This memory sticks with Barack for the rest of his life.
Even if Barack’s father isn’t an African prince (as Barack told his classmates), Barack’s father is nevertheless an engaging speaker. This impresses upon Barack that his father contains multitudes: he’s both overbearing and an excellent conversationalist and speaker. And learning to dance from his father also introduces Barack to the fact that his father can experience unbridled joy—which helps Barack feel more at peace with who his father is.
Themes
