Although I had a reasonably good pedigree from the mainland, I soon found that it counted for nothing in Hawai`i. No one wanted to know where you went to college, they were interested in your high school: to see if you went to Punahou. As glad as I was to have a job there, I was unnerved.
It turned out the teacher of the class I was to sub for had been to Africa the previous year, and needed a daily substitute for the time she taught a seminar about Africa at the high school. She had asked for the lone African American in the fifth grade to be in her class, knowing that his father was from Kenya. I felt badly for him because there was no one there who looked like him. Come to think of it, there were few that looked like me. It was the first time I had really seen Asian faces.
I was a terrible teacher. For reasons still unknown to me, I was assigned to teach Hawaiian History – about which I knew nothing. I could barely pronounce any of the “K” words that make up the Hawaiian language. .
One day, I discovered that the African American kid (whose beautiful, confident smile lit up the class) was the child of a black African and a white American. He wasn’t black. He wasn’t white. He belonged here more than I did. He was Hapa. Hawai`i is the only place I know of that has an acceptable definition of someone of mixed race: they are Hapa (or half).
I left Punahou after that year, and he went on to sit next to my sister-in-law in biology class and ask her huge Hawaiian boyfriend Francis if he could dance with her at the prom. I didn’t know any of this until I was working with Punahou 25 years later and the place was abuzz with the news that Punahou graduate Barry Obama was going to run for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.
Having railed that Punahou was a feeder for the banks and the businesses on Bishop Street, I was dumbstruck that a graduate of Punahou was a public servant. And I knew him. In fact, everything he knew about fifth grade Hawaiian History, he learned from me.
Thrilled beyond belief, I immediately sent a check to his Chicago campaign office. I was suddenly crazy about a fifth grader (frozen in my mind as he was) I had known briefly more than 25 years ago. I couldn’t get enough of Barry Obama. When my business partner and I were in Chicago, we walked for many, many blocks to his campaign office, where we discovered only a couple of people with nothing to sell us. I gave them a check and they gave me a bumper sticker: Obama. Democrat. U.S. Senate
A week later, home in Hawai`i, I had a heart attack and emergency quadruple bypass surgery. I still think that long Chicago walk had a hand in it, but I didn’t hold it against Barry. My adoration for him grew apace. I read Dreams From My Father. I was certain there were bigger things in store for my hero.
When Barack Hussein Obama declared his candidacy for President, I was over the moon. So proud of my little guy. The one with the giant smile. Who had no idea who I was. I assume that this is what people feel when they call a celebrity their own.
No celebrities for me. But this guy: Hawai`i born, Hapa Haole, Columbia and Harvard Law grad, community organizer in the city of my birth? I could love him unreservedly.
I didn’t go to Punahou. I am not from Hawai`i. But I can say “I taught Barack Obama.” And I do. I tell everyone. I was in Chicago right after his inauguration, and when the woman at the front desk of our hotel showed me pictures of her at his inauguration, I let her in on my secret. After that, she introduced me to anyone in earshot: “Let me introduce you to my friend, Mrs. Garvey, who was one of President Obama’s teachers.”
My friend Brook made me a T-shirt that says “Glow: My best teacher ever.” It has his picture on it. She made me a mug which says “Happy Birthday to You Glow” with his picture on it. I wear the shirt, but few people comment on it: No one believes that I Taught Barack Obama.
My affection and admiration for our President is pure, and simple. The tiny connection I have with him made me look harder at the bigger picture. It is not surprising that I would find him so wonderful; I am a Democrat who grew up in the sixties who is proud to look up to our President in my sixties. Every time I see him smile, I smile – always the proud fifth grade teacher.
In my view, he is a man of great dignity with a profound intelligence that is quite accessible. He tried like hell to apply his considerable community organizing skills to a broken legislative system. Perhaps he was naïve: who could believe that the inmates really were running the asylum? Now, he is giving them hell for their lies, their insensitivity, their abject stupidity. I said that. He didn’t. The fighter in me loves him for that.
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