Tea with Barack Obama's sister

Maya Soetoro-Ng on her "awesome" big brother, his early presidential leanings and their mother's legacy of hope.

By Stuart Coleman

Read more: Politics, News, Barack Obama, 2008 election, Stuart Coleman

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Sen. Barack Obama talks with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng as they leave a restaurant in Honolulu on Aug. 11, 2008.

Oct. 23, 2008 | HONOLULU -- When I met Maya Soetoro-Ng at a small cafe in Honolulu last week, we talked mostly about her brother, Barack Obama. She had been campaigning for him but had taken time off to care for their ailing grandmother. Soetoro-Ng didn't know then that 85-year-old Madelyn Dunham's health would become more fragile and that her brother would be flying back to Hawaii to visit her with less than two weeks to go before Election Day, followed by flocks of reporters and an impressive lead in the polls.

Talking over tea, I was struck by how different she looks from her brother, who is nine years her senior. Maya is a zaftig, half-Indonesian woman with light skin, dark hair and a deep voice. Although they had different fathers and lived apart for many years, she and Barack were both raised by the same mother and grandparents.

While Barack went to Harvard, his father's alma mater, to get his law degree, Maya went to the University of Hawaii like her mother and earned a Ph.D. in education. She now teaches at a girls school in Honolulu, where she lives with her husband, Konrad Ng, and their daughter.

Did you ever imagine Barack becoming president?

There was this joke in our childhood that he was going to be the first African-American president ... but it was based on the fact that he was so bossy and he was always winning arguments! You know, he was always trying to tell people what to do so we were like, "Oh, yes, Mr. President!" There's a difference between a family joke and having a real concrete understanding. No, I didn't think that this would happen, or even could happen, until perhaps just after the 2004 Democratic convention when he made that big speech.

What changed after that speech?

He started being recognized and people started really investing their own hopes and aspirations in him, and there were these Draft Obama movements all over the country. But even then, we thought, "All right, the Senate, that's big -- you can effect a lot of change with that." We weren't really thinking beyond that.

When did you first learn that he had aspirations for the nation's highest office?

I remember a few years ago going into his office, and he was pacing and frustrated, and I said, 'What's wrong?' This is in Chicago in his home office. He said, "I don't know. I feel like I'm floundering, like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, that I could be doing more, that I haven't quite found my path, my mission." I started laughing at him because I was like, "You are the only guy who could be a state senator, a law professor and a civil rights lawyer and feel like you're underachieving." The big joke became, "Finally, you're not underachieving!"

What was Barack like as a big brother?

He was an amazing big brother. I've obviously said that a lot, but I mean it. He really was much more attentive than anyone his age could be expected to be.

As a teenager, you went to stay with Barack when he was working as a community organizer in Chicago. Is this when you feel like you began to know him as an adult and an individual?

He was in his 20s so he was pretty young to be taking over the care of his teenage sister. He took me to several colleges around the country to help me make the good decision about where to go to school. He let me stay with him and helped me get my first job. He took me to festivals and fairs and museums. He enrolled me in classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, and I studied dance there. He was awesome! He showed me his life and an impressive dedication to service. I was a teenager then, and our relationship really hasn't changed.

Is it strange seeing what a national and international phenomenon your brother has become?

It's kind of like I'm loaning him out to the rest of the world. I get a wee bit less of him, but he's still the same guy. I don't feel like there's a huge disconnect between the man I see on the television and the man who calls me at night. The smile is the same, the sense of humor is the same, and the ears are the same, and the voice is the same. And it's the same with his politics. He's working now to represent more people, to be more broadly inclusive in his representation. He can't really afford to think, "Who am I?" Now, it's more like, "Who are we as a nation? Or who do we want to be? And how can I help facilitate a stronger, broader, unified identity?"

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