President Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States His life is the American story of a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education to get ahead of his class, and the certainty that a life so sacred should be lived in service to others. Famous orations from Obama include his 2012 election night victory speech, the Health Care Reform speech, A More Perfect Union speech, and many more. Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961. His parents, who met while both were university students, came from very different cultural backgrounds. Baracks mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was the daughter of two white Kansans. Her name was from her father, who had wanted a boy so much that he gave her his first name. His father, Barack Obama Sr., came from a small village in rural Kenya. His father was a brilliant student who won a scholarship to study at the University of Hawaii, becoming the first African student at the school. Barack was raised with help from his grandfather and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank. Stanley and Obama Sr. filed for a divorce in 1963 because of Obamas education. The divorce was finalized in 1964. Obama Jr., called Barry by his family members, grew up with no father in his life and did not yet understand the central role that race played in his life. In 1967, Stanley met and fell in love with an Indonesian exchange student named Lolo Soetoro, and later that year, they both decided to marry. Lolo returned to Indonesia while Ann (Stanleys new name) arranged passports and visas to go with him. In the time it took to get these passports, Lolo was drafted into the Indonesian army. He survived a period in the jungles of New Guinea and was assigned to work as an army geologist. Although this job didnt pay well, Lolo built a small house in a village on the outskirts of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Ann soon got a job in the U.S. embassy to help with the familys expenses. Barry, meanwhile, ran along the streets playing with the other kids. He recalls this as one long adventure, the bounty of a young boys life. Because Barry was six, it was time for him to start school. His parents hose a recently opened Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisi, which was close to their home and accepted children of all religious faiths. Former teaches and friends remembered young Barry as polite, good-natured, and quiet. Early on, he struggled to learn the Indonesian language. Barry had big dreams, said his 3rd grade teacher, Fermina Katarina Sinaga. When she assigned students to write about their goals for the future, he wrote that he wanted to be the first black president of a country. Barrys mother was tough on his education. He remembers that she came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast, and then gave English lessons for three hours before sending me off to school. Before Barry graduated high school, he was often confused about his race and his placement in American society. The color of his skin, in American eyes, was black. Yet, because he was also white, he felt pulled by two communities, which one he belonged to. In order to escape the anger, confusion and anxiety he felt, Barry turned to alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. His grades slipped, he got nicknames like Junkie or Pothead. However, in June 1979, Barry Obama graduated from Punahou Academy, with plans to attend college on the mainland this fall. In the fall of 1979, Obama entered Occidental College, which awarded him a full scholarship. Oxy, as the school is known as, is located in Los Angeles and was founded in 1887. Professors a