The central idea of Dreams From My Father is the importance of identity. As someone from a mixed-race background Barack Obama has to find his place in American society and this means constructing an identity for himself. Yet this task is made all the more difficult by the fact that he never really knew his African father. Contemporary American society doesn't offer much help, either. Obama is regarded by black and white alike as African-American despite his having a white mother.

So Obama, through experience and reflection, has to settle on a stable identity for himself, one that acknowledges his mixed-race background while at the same time affirming his African heritage. It's by no means an easy task, but it's an essential one if Obama is to find his place in a society still deeply divided along racial lines.

With this memoir, a young man of mixed race explores his ties not only with the black community of his native land, the United States, but also to his black roots and his extended family in Kenya. The image of his father looms large, always, even though young Barack barely knew the man and had spent only a month with him, years ago. The book is divided into three parts: Origins, Chicago, and Kenya. And yet even as Barack grows up, goes to college, and begins organizing work in the big city, he is haunted by the role his father has figured in his life and how it has impacted his own background. He asks questions of those who knew the man. And in the last section, he finally travels to Kenya itself, to meet long-distance relatives, to ask questions, and to really get a handle on who his father was and what his role was in the grand scheme of the universe. Only in knowing these facts, can Barack more clearly define his own roles. Only then can he move forward.