You will be pleased to know that all your brothers and sisters here are fine, and send their greetings. Like me, they
approve of your decision to come home after graduation. When you come, we shall, together, decide on how long you
may wish to stay. Barry, even if it is only for a few days, the important thing is that you know your people, and also
that you know where you belong.
Please look after yourself, and say hallo to your mum, Tutu, and Stanley. I hope to hear from you soon.
Love,
Dad
I folded the letter along its seams and stuffed it back into my pocket. It hadn’t been easy to write him; our
correspondence had all but died over the past four years. In fact, I had gone through several drafts, crossing out lines,
struggling for the appropriate tone, resisting the impulse to explain too much. “Dear Father.” “Dear Dad.” “Dear Dr.
Obama.” And now he had answered me, cheerful and calm. Know where you belong, he advised. He made it sound
simple, like calling directory assistance.
“Information-what city, please?”
“Uh...I’m not sure. I was hoping you could tell me. The name’s Obama. Where do I belong?”
Maybe it really was that simple for him. I imagined my father sitting at his desk in Nairobi, a big man in government,
with clerks and secretaries bringing him papers to sign, a minister calling him for advice, a loving wife and children
waiting at home, his own father’s village only a day’s drive away. The image made me vaguely angry, and I tried to set
it aside, concentrating instead on the sound of salsa coming from an open window somewhere down the block. The
same thoughts kept returning to me, though, as persistent as the beat of my heart.
Where did I belong? My conversation with Regina that night after the rally might have triggered a change in me, left
me warm with good intentions. But I was like a drunk coming out of a long, painful binge, and I had soon felt my
newfound resolve slipping away, without object or direction. Two years from graduation, I had no idea what I was
going to do with my life, or even where I would live. Hawaii lay behind me like a childhood dream; I could no longer
imagine settling there. Whatever my father might say, I knew it was too late to ever truly claim Africa as my home.
And if I had come to understand myself as a black American, and was understood as such, that understanding remained
unanchored to place. What I needed was a community, I realized, a community that cut deeper than the common
despair that black friends and I shared when reading the latest crime statistics, or the high fives I might exchange on a
basketball court. A place where I could put down stakes and test my commitments.
And so, when I heard about a transfer program that Occidental had arranged with Columbia University, I’d been quick
to apply. I figured that if there weren’t any more black students at Columbia than there were at Oxy, I’d at least be in
the heart of a true city, with black neighborhoods in close proximity. As it was, there wasn’t much in L.A. to hold me
back. Most of my friends were graduating that year: Hasan off to work with his family in London, Regina on her way
to Andalusia to study Spanish Gypsies.
And Marcus? I wasn’t sure what had happened to Marcus. He should have had one more year left, but something had
gotten to him midway through his junior year, something that I recognized, even if I couldn’t quite name it. I thought
back to one evening, sitting with him in the library, before he’d decided to drop out of school. An Iranian student, an