What social challenges did Obama face in Dreams from My Father?

In the book Dreams from My Father, Obama explains that he was mainly raised by his grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. His grandfather served in the US Army, where he was exposed to people from various races and backgrounds. Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was raised in a military family and was accustomed to meeting people from other races and ethnic backgrounds during her father's career.

Obama's mother worked in the development sector in the State Department and found it prudent to have Obama stay with his grandparents in Hawaii to give him a stable environment. Obama had to learn at a tender age to cope with many questions, as he did not want to overburden his grandparents with too many questions. He says in the book that he preferred to stay in his room after completing his homework.

One of the social challenges Obama faced was growing up without a father. His father, Barack Obama Senior, returned to Kenya when Obama was three years old and only returned to the US for a brief visit when Obama Junior was ten years old. Young Obama had a lot of questions for his father, but his visit left him with more questions still. His sister Auma Obama in Kenya played a very important role in answering many of the questions about who their father was.

Another social challenge Obama faced was his racial identity. He was very close to his grandparents, especially his grandfather, who played the father figure in his life very effectively. However, Obama knew his father was Kenyan, and he struggled to understand where he fit as a Kenyan. Obama first came to Kenya in 1987, and he was shocked right at the airport on arrival when the Immigration official recognized him and asked him if he was Dr. Obama's son.

His visit to Kenya helped him connect with his Kenyan roots and understand his Kenyan identity.

Obama knew his mother and his grandparents were not rich, but they had set high expectations for him, especially his academic life. When he went to Occidental College in Los Angeles, he faced a real challenge in choosing friends. He was a child of two worlds. His maternal and paternal worlds were different and constantly competing in his life. Balancing academics and his friends was challenging. The two years he spent in Occidental College gave him the opportunity to interact and understand an African American community.

In conclusion, despite his social challenges, Obama made the best of his life, with the support of his mother, his grandparents, and the communities he served. He turned the challenges into opportunities that helped him capture the Illinois Senate seat in 2004, propelling him to the presidency in 2008.

In Dreams from My Father, what difficulties did Obama face as a social outcast?

One of the greatest difficulties that Barack experienced as a social "outcast" kid was being unable to find a "home" in any social group.

As a kid, Barack Obama was different in many ways.  He was different on the level of race because he was biracial.  He possessed an unconventional family in that his father left when he was young and he lived with his mother in Indonesia. The constant movement throughout his youth provided another layer of difference.  All of this translates to a lack of stability in his life and the feeling of being an "outcast."  

There were specific instances where the challenges in being an outcast were directly felt.  At these moments, Barack understood the reality of lacking a group or a social home where he could feel fully accepted. When he was asked by a teacher what tribe his father was from in Kenya, being a social outcast proved to be pointedly difficult: "When I finally said 'Luo,' a sandy-haired boy behind me repeated the word in a loud hoot, like the sound of a monkey.”  Later that day, a girl asked him if she could touch his hair while another child asked him if his father ate people.  Being one of the few African-Americans in the classroom demonstrated the problems of being an outsider: “The novelty of having me in the class quickly wore off for the other kids, although my sense that I didn’t belong continued to grow.”  The lack of belonging was one of the greatest difficulties in being an outcast for Barack Obama.

These difficulties followed him when he was older. Fellow African-American students criticized him for being too approachable to those in the position of power, most of whom were white: “Just like I see you getting along, talking your game with the teachers when you need them to do you a favor. All that stuff about 'Yes, Miss Snooty Bitch, I just find this novel so engaging, if I can just have one more day for that paper, I’ll kiss your white ass.'”   When Barack brought some of his white friends to an African-American party, they were uncomfortable, and one of them commented to him that "I can see how it must be tough for you and Ray sometimes, at school parties… being the only black guys and all.”  In both communities, Barack experienced being an outcast as a kid.  Not being able to have a social home where he could be accepted for who he was represented a major obstacle.  In different settings, the experience that he "didn't belong" lingered.  

What difficulties does Obama describe having as a child in Dreams from My Father?

When Obama lived in Indonesia as a young child, he encountered the problem of trying to understand the violence and tragedy that he saw and heard around him. For example, he saw a man with a hole where his nose used to be come to his mother's door to ask for food. He also heard about the death of his friend's little brother and saw the despair of poor farmers waiting for the rains to arrive. He also witnessed an endless tide of beggars arriving at his door asking for help. 

Later, he came across a photo in Life magazine of a black man who attempted to peel off his skin. Obama described this moment as an "ambush attack" (page 51), as he never before realized the power of bigotry. Obama wondered if there were something wrong with himself, as he looked like the man in the photo. He also wondered if the people around him were delusional, because they didn't point out anything different about his looks.

When he attended Punahou, an elite private school in Hawaii, he felt isolated because he was one of very few black kids at the school. He spent his teenage years trying to figure out how to be a black man in America, as his father lived far away in Kenya and none of his white family members could guide him in this regard. He even found that his grandmother was afraid of black men, as much as she loved him, and this caused him a great deal of pain. His identity as a multiracial person caused him a great deal of distress in his youth because he felt isolated and unable to reconcile the black and white worlds he belonged to in Hawaii.

In Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama describes the difficulties of not fitting in with others and being a social outcast as a child because of his racial identity.

The difficulties that Obama experienced as a child because of race are documented in different portions of his narrative.  One such moment is when he was a ten year-old new student.  The homeroom teacher, Mrs. Hefty, spoke glowingly about "Barry's" Kenyan heritage in front of the other students. Obama communicates the difficulties of being different from others when she asks him about his tribal affiliation:

Her question brought on more giggles, and I remained speechless for a moment. When I finally said 'Luo,' a sandy-haired boy behind me repeated the word in a loud hoot, like the sound of a monkey. The children could no longer contain themselves, and it took a stern reprimand from Miss Hefty before the class would settle down and we could mercifully move on to the next person on the list. 

Obama's difficulties in fitting in with the other children are due to his racial identity.  When the other children "could no longer contain themselves" from laughing at him being African, he felt like a social outcast.  He describes how he was "in a daze" for the rest of that day. Children asked to feel his hair, as if he were a pet, while another child asked if his father "ate people."  When Obama goes home after that first day, he cannot answer his grandfather as to how his day went.  He simply closes the door to his room, knowing that he does not fit in with white children.  The personal and emotional details that Obama employs to describe this experience communicate his difficulties in being "different" than the cultural majority.