Obama’s sister gives her first interview

We used to say ‘Yes, Mr President,’ even when he was 14’: Obama’s sister gives her first interview

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:36 PM on 12th April 2011

Dailymail

Maya Soetoro-Ng, 40, campaigned alongside her older brother when he was running for president in 2008.

She was overjoyed when he won the election but said that their mother, who has now died, would be concerned about the job’s responsibility.

In a rare interview, Maya said that the younger Barack Obama always seemed destined to be president from the way he bossed people around.

‘He was always telling people what to do, so the family would joke: ‘Yes, Mr President.’ He took himself a little more seriously than he does now,’ she told the Times.

‘But his point was that I shouldn’t be engaged in frivolous pursuits. I should be more studious. And he took it upon himself to give me guidance, which I needed.’

Obama has described in a biography his sister, who is nine years his junior, as a ‘knowing dark-eyed child’ who became a ‘Latin countess’.

The pair of them grew up alongside each other despite regular travelling between Hawaii, Obama’s native state, and Indonesia, her father’s country.

Their mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, gave birth to Obama in her first marriage with Barack Obama Snr. He was from a poor Kenyan village.

The couple separated and when she married Indonesian student Lolo Soetor in 1967 the young Obama joined them in Jakarta.

But Obama was sent back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents when Maya was just two years old and she has little recollection of him from that age.

She returned the following year with her mother, an anthropological field worker, and the family lived together from 1973 to 1976.

Maya said that she might have been an ‘annoying little sister’ who would block the TV set when Obama was watching basketball games and try to get the attention of his friends.

Their mother returned to Indonesia again three years later leaving Obama in Honolulu until they returned when Maya was 14.

Now the man of the house after his mother and step-father had separated, Obama developed his strong leadership.

Maya said that he offered opinions about which dates she should go on and would even critique her clothes.

When the pair of them had grown up and moved away, Maya stayed with Obama, who was in his 20s, in Chicago where he was working as a community developer.

She said that he was too old to be taking care of his younger sister but would be more attentive than other people his age.

Their mother died in 1995 and together they scattered her ashes from layers of volcanic rock in Hawaii into the Pacific.

Maya said that Obama’s mother longed to be a grandmother but died before his children were born.

‘She would have been proud and excited that he had this opportunity to make such a lasting impact on the world,’ she added.

‘But she wouldn’t have enjoyed the fact that so many burdens laid squarely on his shoulders and would have wanted to give him peace, love, sanctuary and rest. She would have been a mother first.’

Maya penned a children’s book during her time at Obama’s home in Chicago and on the campaign trail that.

The book, Ladder to the Moon, takes its title from Georgia O’Keffe’s painting that shows a ladder floating against the sky.

She said that despite feeling overjoyed at her brother’s success she wants to be known for what she has achieved. She still stays in touch with her older brother but says it feels like he has ‘been loaned out to the world’ as she gets to see less of him.

But she admits: ‘I often call his secretary or the White House usher. Barack works hard to make himself available to the people who love him.’