Exhibit animates Obama’s mother

The artifacts and field notes left behind by Ann Dunham before she would become known as President Barack Obama’s mother drew a crowd of 300 on Sunday for a peek at her passion to improve people’s lives.

"Through Her Eyes: S. Ann Dunham’s Field Work in Indonesia" includes Dunham’s notebooks and pictures from her field research, as well as jewelry, textiles, ceramics and baskets she collected while helping villagers receive "micro­loans" that changed their lives.

"None of this stuff is valuable at all in terms of its monetary value, but there were stories behind each piece," said Dunham’s daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng. "You can see how meticulous her field notes were and the sense of intellectual rigor that was coupled with a lot of feeling."

Dunham, who died of cancer in 1995, earned her doctorate at the University of Hawaii while helping craftsmen in Indonesia and Africa get small loans to improve their lives and their villages, and ended up becoming an expert in "microlending."

In the 1970s she also was a graduate student fellow at the East-West Center, where Soetoro-Ng now works as an education specialist.

The East-West Center’s John A. Burns Hall will exhibit the display through Jan. 8, which will give Obama an opportunity to see it during next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference on Oahu.

In 2008 UH held a seminar on Dunham’s work — from an anthropology undergraduate to her doctoral dissertation — titled "Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham: An Extraordinary Woman and Her Work."

Organizers had to change the UH location twice to accommodate an overflow crowd.

UH professor emeritus Alice G. Dewey, Dunham’s graduate anthropology adviser, saw the East-West Center exhibit twice before Sunday’s unveiling because she contributed a ring that Dunham had bought Dewey in Indonesia. It was identical to a ring Dunham had bought for Obama but that he later lost his while in high school or college, Dewey said.

Dewey raved over the exhibit of Dunham’s field work and artifacts.

"It’s been done beautifully," she said. "It really catches what Ann was like. She enjoyed life."

Soetoro-Ng said the exhibit displayed items she grew up with and were later stored at Dewey’s — or were dug out after Soetoro-Ng’s grandmother died in her Beretania Street apartment on the eve of Obama’s historic 2008 election.

"My mother traveled so much and brought so much of the world into our home that the world was made so very large through her stories and through her commitments to so many different parts of the planet," Soetoro-Ng said. "I hope that when people see this exhibit, they see someone who was wide open and adventurous and cared a great deal about the people of the world and the potential for peace and dialogue."