Barack Obama's Hawaii
HONOLULU | Book explores his childhood and the cultural diversity that helped shape him
HONOLULU -- The boyhood home of President-elect Barack Obama is in the cradle of Manoa Valley. The lush, green neighborhood is set between Waikiki Beach and Mt. Tantalus. When trade winds roll in, they meet the mountain. and moisture falls like glitter. The sun hits the precipitation, which creates rainbows on a near daily basis.
(AP/Courtesy)
HONOLULU -- The boyhood home of President-elect Barack Obama is in the cradle of Manoa Valley. The lush, green neighborhood is set between Waikiki Beach and Mt. Tantalus. When trade winds roll in, they meet the mountain. and moisture falls like glitter. The sun hits the precipitation, which creates rainbows on a near daily basis.
There is no other presidential site like this in the United States.
Between 1964 and 1967, Obama lived in a beige four-bedroom home at 2234 University Ave. with his mother, Ann Dunham, and her parents, Stan and Madelyn, who became known as "Toot." (Tu-tu is Hawaiian for grandmother.)
Stu Glauberman of Honolulu is the lead author of The Dream Begins: How Hawai'i Shaped Barack Obama (Watermark, $17.95). He looks at the now-historic site, built in 1947, and says, "This is what the adult Barack Obama describes in his memoir as the comfortable rambling old house in Manoa. These were his happy days as a toddler. It's the house Gramps and Toot bought."
Billie Holiday sang about "Strange Fruit." The Manoa Valley is filled with fruit you can touch. Residents eat a guava off a tree. The streets are lined with bamboo and eucalyptus trees. Pink flowers bloom at night.
It is a magical place.
Barack Obama II was born in Honolulu, where he lived until he was 6. He went with his mother to Indonesia and returned to Hawaii at age 10, where he remained until he was 18. He spent all his Hawaiian years within a five-mile radius of Manoa Valley.
The University Avenue house is within walking distance of Noelani ("heavenly mist") Elementary School, which Obama attended. There is no air conditioning or heating at the one-level school. A mosaic rainbow greets visitors to the school. Obama would stop for scoops of white rice and macaroni salad at the Rainbow Drive-In (established in 1961), 3306 Kanaina Ave, on the way to play at Waikiki. He also liked to eat the saimin noodles at the Like Like diner, 745 Keeaumoku St.
"The Obamas and Dunhams had seven, eight addresses during Barry's life," Glauberman says. "University Avenue is a choice neighborhood. It's where all the college professors want to live. There's very little commercialism and very high real estate values."
Of course, everyone who knew Obama in Hawaii calls the president-elect Barry.
But when Barry played high school basketball, he was known as the "Obomber" for his wicked jump shot. Even in his adult years, Obama played pickup games at Paki Park basketball courts near the Diamond Head end of Waikiki.
"Basketball introduced him to the popular black man," Glauberman says. "In Hawaii, he didn't see a lot of black guys, especially popular black guys who were adored."
The Dream Begins is a best-seller in Hawaii. In the book, Glauberman and veteran Honolulu Advertiser political writer Jerry Burris intertwine Hawaii sociology with Obama's formative years.
Various ethnic groups came to Hawaii as laborers in the pineapple and sugar plantations. Immigrants wanted to keep their cultures alive while working together in the fields.
"There were no ethnic neighborhoods," Glauberman says. "From this, the next generation recognized the special experience of being from Hawaii, where 'local' meant having Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Okinawan friends and influences. When Barry was here in the 1970s, it became a political movement, where people defined themselves as 'local' and wore a plaid shirt [Palaka], which had its roots in the plantation era."
In Hawaii, it's not who you are, it's when you are.
Glauberman elaborates: "When you are a mixed race and identify with more than one culture, you can change who you are when you are with the people of that background."
Hawaii native Burris adds: "People complain about that with Obama: 'Who is he?' He is what he wants to be and who he needs to be in the context of where he is at the time. That's what happens in Hawaii."
The most remarkable stop on the Obama Hawaii tour is Punahou School, a K-12 private institution where the president-elect studied during high school. The school was founded in 1841.
Punahou is Hawaiian for "new spring." The 76-acre landscape resembles a college campus on the mainland. Enrollment is 3,750 students. Manicured paths lead to spacious classrooms. The walls along Puhahou Street are lined with thick night-blooming cereus. Earlier this year, Sports Illustrated ranked the Punahou sports program best out of 38,000 high schools in the United States.
Glauberman and Burris interviewed dozens of Punahou classmates and teachers for their book. The Obama camp declined to participate.
Eric Kusunoki, 59, had Obama in his homeroom from his 1975 freshman year at Punahou through his graduation in 1979. "Part of our mission statement is to embrace cultural diversity," Kusunoki says in a separate interview. "We are all minorities. Everybody is different, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. He was not involved in student government, but people respected him."
Glauberman looks across the street from the school and says, "The steps of that Lutheran church is where Barry's friends say they bought drugs. These stone buildings on campus remind me of Northwestern [University in Evanston], where I did my undergraduate work."
Glauberman is a native of Queens, N.Y. He arrived in Hawaii in 1976 from Laos to obtain his master's degree in Asian studies at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii. Obama's mother and stepfather also studied at the progressive East-West Center.
Only a block from the school are the gray-and-silver Punahou Circle Apartments, 1617 Beretania, where Obama's grandmother Toot lived until her death two days before the presidential election. The 10th floor of the high-rise was Obama's primary residence from age 10 until he left Hawaii at 18. "They sold the house because they needed the money, and Gramps was changing careers," Glauberman says. "He went from furniture sales into life insurance."
What was the most surprising thing Glauberman learned about Obama while working on the 152-page book?
"A 13-year-old boy chose to identify himself as black and not as hapa" -- half or mixed -- he answers. "He was half white and half black and could have told his friends he was hapa. On the Punahou campus, it was socially cool to be half something. But he didn't want to be seen that way. He wore an afro and was into the 'Soul Train' thing."