Acknowledgments
I began working on this book in the late spring of 2008, before Barack Obama was the Democratic presidential nominee. At a time when it might not have seemed reasonable to do so, many people trusted me and gave me the benefit of the doubt. In the text and the endnotes, Ive credited the nearly two hundred people who took the time to help me understand my subject. To some of them, I owe an extra debt of gratitude for additional acts of generosity and kindness; there are other people, too, who helped me in different ways. I wish to thank them here.
First and foremost, there is Ann Dunhams family. I could not have begun to understand her childhood and the lives of her parents without the cooperation and openness of Charles Payne, Arlene Payne, Jon Payne, and Ralph Dunham. I do not underestimate the magnitude of what I asked of Maya Soetoro-Ng, whose memories and insights were a gift, bestowed with a graceful balance of candor, loyalty, and discretion. I am indebted, too, to her brother for having made the time to talk with me in the White House and for the frankness and feeling with which he did it.
In Hawaii, Alice Dewey, an inspiration to generations of anthropologists, shared with me her infectious passion for Java, her wide-ranging wisdom, and countless letters and papers. Garrett and Bron Solyom gave me access to Anns field notebooks and other papers, meticulously archived by Bron. They fed me, gave me a place to work, and explained mysteries of Java that they surely doubted I would ever comprehend. Marguerite Robinson, in Brookline, Massachusetts, gave me a brilliant tutorial in the development of microfinance in Indonesia, as well as invaluable introductions to her former colleagues at Bank Rakyat Indonesia.
In Jakarta, I am especially thankful to Agus Rachmadi of Bank Rakyat Indonesia for serving as my guide to the bank, and to Kamardy Arief, the former chief executive officer. Made Suarjana took time away from his job to travel from East Kalimantan to Yogyakarta and spend several days with me there and in Kajar and other villages where Ann worked. Julia Suryakusuma shared with me her wonderfully illuminating correspondence with Ann. John McGlynn, the American writer and translator of Indonesian literature, took me on an unforgettable walk through one of the last neighborhoods that resemble Jakarta as Ann found it in 1967. Taluki Sasmitarsi accompanied me to villages and markets, and took me all over Yogyakarta on the backseat of her motorbike.
Kris Hartadi, pressed into service at the last minute after another translator was quarantined in Singapore during the H1N1 pandemic, did two consecutive days of simultaneous interpreting in Yogyakarta. Tita Suhartono and Yan Matius in Jakarta helped with research and gave me invaluable practical advice. In the United States, Alan M. Stevens, one of the two coauthors of A Comprehensive Indonesian-English Dictionary, generously translated documents, proofread my manuscript, and enlightened me about such things as Indonesian orthography and honorifics.
At the Ford Foundation in New York, Tony Maloney and Marcy Goldstein made it possible for me to read dozens of grant files in the foundations archives. In Kansas, Kim Baker combed the public record for clues to the lives of Ann Dunhams forebears. Michael J. Rosenfeld, author of The Age of Independence: Interracial Unions, Same-Sex Unions, and the Changing American Family (Harvard University Press, 2007), supplied me with statistics on interracial marriage. In New York, Steven Rattazzi kept my computer running and made my manuscript look flawless. Catherine Talese secured permission to use certain photographs. Jill Bokor and Sandy Smith made available a serene and sunlit aerie in which to write.
At The New York Times, Bill Keller, Jill Abramson, and Dick Stevenson gave me the opportunity to write at length about Barack Obama, starting in the spring of 2007, not long after he declared his candidacy, and continuing for a year. Rebecca Corbett, who edited those articles, did not flinch when I proposed a detour to consider the candidates mom. On the basis of that article, Sarah McGrath at Riverhead Books proposed a book on Ann, and Riverhead gave me the time and the means to research her life in depth. Sarah proved to be as incisive and supportive an editor as one could possibly hope. I am grateful to Geoff Kloske at Riverhead, and to Sarah Stein. Scott Moyers of the Wylie Agency inspired utter confidence that nothing could go awry. Arthur Gelb, the former managing editor of The New York Times, encouraged the project from its very beginning.
Mia and Owen Ritter, who have taught me much of what little I understand about being a mother, tolerated my absences, took an interest in my work, and provided joy and comic relief. As for Joe Lelyveld, to whom I am indebted in too many ways to count, I will say here simply that he gave me unfailingly wise advice, perfectly grilled sardines, great happiness, and best of all, himself.
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Dunham, S. Ann. Surviving Against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope. New York: Crown, 2006.
. Dreams from My Father. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995.
Patten, Richard H., and Jay K. Rosengard. Progress with Profits: The Development of Rural Banking in Indonesia. San Francisco: ICS Press for the International Center for Economic Growth and the Harvard Institute for International Development, 1991.
Price, Jay M. El Dorado: Legacy of an Oil Boom. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2005.
Robinson, Marguerite S. The Microfinance Revolution, vol. 2: Lessons from Indonesia. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2002.
Schwarz, Adam. A Nation in Waiting: Indonesias Search for Stability. Oxford: Westview Press, 2000.
Solyom, Garrett, and Bronwen Solyom. The World of the Javanese Keris. Honolulu: Asian Arts Press, 1988.
Vickers, Adrian. A History of Modern Indonesia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
A Note on Photos
Over the past three years, people surprised me repeatedly with photographs of Ann Dunham. There was the photo of Ann, at forty-four, on a Manhattan rooftopthe photo that left me wondering about her in the first place. There was the photo of Ann, in a borrowed sarong and kebaya, at the University of Hawaii at age twenty-one. Over a dish of crisp fried cows lung in a Jakarta restaurant in 2009, Samardal Manan pulled out a black-and-white snapshot dating back to 1969. When I met Bill Byers, he showed me a photo, of Ann in a dashiki, which he had held on to for thirty-five years. Classmates, colleagues, field assistants, a driver, a professor, protges, family members, and friends unearthed images in old albums, stuffed in envelopes, bent at the corners. Ann kept photos, too. For years, she documented in photographs as well as writing the working lives of the blacksmiths and other craftspeople she studied. She took her camera on field trips with teams of younger colleagues to places like Sulawesi and Bali. Some of those pictures became part of her dissertation. After her death, many were kept by her close friends. Some of the images in this book were made public during the 2008 presidential campaign by Obama for America, the campaign organization. But most were made available to me by family members and friends of Ann Dunham, some of whom chose not to be credited by name.
