Feeling like a citizen of the world was a long journey for Maya Soetoro-Ng. She was not as confident in her multi-racial identity growing up as her older brother, President Obama. “There has never been much ambiguity for him,” she stated in the Los Angeles Times this past June. She was hosting a photo exhibit at L.A.’s Japanese American national Museum, “Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids.”
Created by photographer and filmmaker Kip Fulbeck, who is of Chinese, Irish, Welsh and English descent, the exhibit is paired with a companion book which includes a forward written by Soetoro-Ng. Running through September 26th, the exhibit reflects children who identify themselves by what they do more than what they are racially. They make funny faces, show off their basketballs, play guitar, love their blankets and favorite stuffed bears. They are children first. Race is a secondary issue, but when asked, they claim everything they are - Puerto Rican, Korean, Cambodian, Irish, Filipina, Italian - whatever mix with which they identify in their open minds, something adults could learn from, says Fulbeck and Soetoro-Ng.
As a child, such racial freedom was not as flexible for Soetoro-Ng. She remembers a time when she felt like she never quite fit in. She grew up in Indonesia feeling too American, but at age 12 when she attended Jakarta International school, her reserved nature was a sharp contrast to the gregarious Americans who attended school with her. This difference was felt again later when she moved to Hawaii. Regardless of the location, she never felt she completely belonged anywhere. “Wherever I was, I felt somewhat inadequate in terms of the purest expression of culture.”
During the presidential elections in 2008, Soetoro-Ng campaigned for her brother. The race issue came up frequently and the differences between her and her brother’s racial claims became a focal point. In a 2008 interview for the New York Times, she identified her brother as Black, “because that is how he had named himself. Each of us has a right to name ourselves as we will.” It may also be a political issue. When making a choice between White and a traditionally disenfranchised group, such as Black or Latino, there is a lot of pressure to show loyalty to or solidarity with the oppressed group.
For Soetoro-Ng, however, politics are not involved in how she identifies herself now. “I’m half white, half Asian. I think of myself as hybrid.” This sort of claim was somewhat anomalous when she was growing up. “There was a time when that felt like unsteady terrain and it made me feel vulnerable.” Yet, embracing her bi-racial identity set her ahead of the multicultural curve. “That’s one of the things our mother taught us. It can all belong to you. If you have sufficient love and respect for part of the world, it can be a meaningful part of who you are, even if it wasn’t delivered at birth.”
Their white mother, a cultural anthropologist, was considered a freethinker in her time.
After her second marriage to Soetoro-Ng’s Indonesian father, she moved to Jakarta with Maya while her son Barrack stayed with his grandparents in Hawaii. “My mother was a courageous woman. And she had such tremendous love for life. She loved the natural world. She would wake us up in the middle of the night to go look at the moon.” As a teenager this was very frustrating, admits Soetoro-Ng. Most teenagers would rather sleep! Looking back, however, this is a cherished memory. Her mother died at 52 from ovarian cancer. “Today,” says Soetoro-Ng, “more than anything..... I wish we could all sit together and gaze at the moon.”