http://odewire.com/50875/obamas-hawaiian-state-of-mind.html
Obamas Hawaiian state of mind
March 1, 2010, 10:00 am
How his Hawaiian upbringing shapes the way Barack Obama governsand what it means for the U.S. and the world.
James Graff | March 2010 issue
But Obama came to the White House infused with the spirit of a place very different from the rest of America. Hawaii, where he was born and attended school from the fifth grade to high school graduation, still celebrates a cultural heritage radically foreign to that of the rest of the U.S. And it has shaped the 44th president just as it does everyone of whatever ethnicity who grew up on the most remote, diverse and exotic state in the Union.
The West has already accommodated multiculturalism into music, culinary tastes and cinema. But to have a figure to which so much foreignness adheres as U.S. president marks a singular moment in American political history. The rest of the world registers it, too. Like it or not, Americas president is also to some extent president of the world. In Obama, the world has a leader who is not only open to other cultural influences and other points of view but has direct experience of them. The world is watching to see how much difference that will make.
In Hawaii, Obama was imbued with an islanders sense of shared purpose. He grew up in a place less given to an us versus them mentality and more attuned to we, a place defined less by Americas frontier ethic than by the enormity of the Pacific Ocean. If Obama manages to keep that legacy alive, he could recalibrate Americas role in the worldand the worlds attitude toward America.