Although there have been many books written about Barack Hussein Obama and his rise to the presidency, Dinish Sharma of West Windsor has written “Barack Obama in Hawai’i and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President,” with a focus on his multicultural roots and how they created his skills at globalization. Sharma discusses the new book on Sunday, October 9, at the West Windsor Library. “This book has a unique advantage, because as an immigrant, I have both an outsider and insider perspective of American society and culture,” says Sharma.
Sharma was born in New Delhi, India. His parents came to the U.S. in the “first wave of immigrants” in the mid to late 1970s ,and he came over as a young teenager and lived in the Midwest with his family.
He graduated from Loyola University in Chicago with degrees in psychology and pre-medicine. Sharma has remained on the east coast since he arrived at Harvard University for graduate studies in psychology. “I arrived a year after Obama received his law degree,” he says. Sharma did his post doc in medical epidemiology at Columbia University.
A marketing science consultant, he works at the Institute for International and Cross-Cultural Psychology at St. Francis College. His articles and opinion pieces have appeared in Asia Times Online, Wall Street Journal Online, Little India, Wonkette.com, Free Lance-Star, Far Eastern Economic Review, Middle East Times, Middle East Online, Epoch Times, Biotech Law Review, Health Affairs, Media Monitors, International Psychology Bulletin, and other scientific journals.
His previous books include “Human Technogenesis: Cultural Pathways through the Information Age;” “Childhood, Family, and Sociocultural Change in India;” and “Socioemotional Development Across Cultures.”
Sharma and his family moved from Greenwich, Connecticut, to Berrien City in 2001 when he was working as a consultant. They moved to Arnold Drive seven years ago. His wife, Ruby Sharma, works in accounting and finance in New York City. Their daughter, 6; and son, 8, both attend SciCore Academy in Hightstown.
“Barack Obama is a sign of the changing times, a product of globalization spurred by American power, free-market capitalism, and a unique form of multiculturalism,” Sharma writes in his book. “Writing this book gave me an opportunity to learn about the changing nature of American society, politics, and culture.”
Sharma examines Obama’s infancy and early childhood with a focus on his parents’ marriage, subsequent divorce, and his extended family in Hawai’i, Indonesia, and Kenya. There is a chapter about the women in Obama’s life — his mother, Ann Dunham, a white anthropologist from Kansas; his grandmother, Madelyn; and his wife, Michelle. “The Dunham women gave Obama a head start in life, intellectually, socially, and emotionally, which Michelle Obama first recognized as presidential timber,” says Sharma.
“I interviewed an extensive amount of people from Obama’s childhood and adolescence,” says Sharma, who interviewed Obama’s sister, Maya. He was given many photos from the family collection. “Obama’s years in Hawai’i and Indonesia were anthropological, journalistic, and psychological.” Sharma interviewed people in Jakarta, Honolulu, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
Copies of the book will be available through Friends of the West Windsor Library. The book is also available at amazon.com.
— Lynn Miller
Author Event, West Windsor Library, 333 North Post Road. Sunday, October 9, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Dinesh Sharma, author of “Barack Obama in Hawai’i and Indonesia: The Making of a Global President,” lives in West Windsor. 609-799-0462.
