Today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin has a fascinating article by on the late anthropologist Ann Dunham, the mother of Sen. Barack Obama and Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng. The article reports on yesterday's Women's Studies colloquium at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa (where Ann earned a bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D), entitled, "Stanley Ann Dunham: An Extraordinary Woman and Her Work."
The discussion focused on Ann's anthropological research. Maya, now an educator in Honolulu, attended the event. Please follow me below the fold for some excerpts from the article, as well as a few notes about Maya, an amazing woman who's proving to be a major asset for her brother's presidential campaign.
Ann, who died of ovarian cancer in 1995 (after Barack had watched her fight with insurance companies from her bed), spent much of her professional and academic career as an anthropologist in Indonesia, where Maya was born.
An anthropologist who specialized in handicrafts and rural development, Dunham helped pioneer "microfinance" in Indonesia, getting villagers small loans so they could build cottage industries to preserve native crafts and pull themselves out of poverty.
"She found 'home' everywhere she went and delighted in all of the beauties and layers in each place," said Soetoro-Ng, who teaches at La Pietra-Hawaii School for Girls. "She really believed that every place and every group of people had something extraordinary to give, if we would only pay attention."
In addition to Maya, other speakers included Professor Emeritus Alice Dewey and one of her fellow researchers in Indonesia, Nancy I. Cooper. They marveled at Ann's exemplary work ethic and boundless compassion. They also noted with admiration that Ann became an expert in Indonesian handicrafts, which helped her bond with local residents and made her much more effective in her work with them. Indeed, her work was deemed valuable not just for academic research, but also because she was able to make a significant difference in the lives of many Indonesian peasants, especially women.
The overflow crowd seemed understandably impressed by Ann's work, as one audience member observed that she had both "cultural sensitivity" and "common sense."
The event was bittersweet for Maya: "There are so many reasons I want her to be here to offer guidance and love."
The Star-Bulletin's Susan Essoyan is one of Hawai`i's best journalists, and I commend her whole article to you:
http://starbulletin.com/...
I hope you'll be as fortunate as I have been and get the chance to meet Maya on the campaign trail. She gave a great speech in Denver, is on Hawai`i Island today, and may soon again be deployed to key Mainland states (although her teaching and family responsibilities in Hawai`i make travel difficult during the school year). She has traveled as far as Florida and New York in support of her brother's campaign over the summer. Maya is a fluent Spanish speaker, has a wonderful (and often self-deprecating) sense of humor, and has displayed an uncanny ability to connect with people from all backgrounds. I'm sure Ann would be endlessly proud of both of her and Barack. And I think we are all lucky that Ann was such a great person and such a great mom.
Aloha!