Summary

In Chapter 4, Obama recounts his difficult high school years. Obama finally found a loose community of African Americans, including Ray, a native of Los Angeles. Despite his desire for such friendships, Obama admits that the years after his father's death were "complicated" (74). Ann went to graduate school and so was busy and stressed by the financial pressures of being a single mother after the dissolution of her marriage to Lolo. She eventually took Maya to Indonesia and completed the field work for her degree, leaving Obama behind with her grandparents, who left Obama to his own devices.

Although Obama was happy with the additional freedom, he struggled to make sense of his racial identity. Obama had few true relationships with African American men, so he turned to popular culture to learn about African American racial identity. Obama Sr. gave his son a...