Dr. Shruti Shankar Gaur

Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ Book Review by Dr. Shruti Shankar Gaur

I picked ‘Becoming’ by Michelle Obama out of curiosity. She is a well-known tabloid face as the ex-first lady of the United States of America. I was intrigued to read the story of the woman behind Barack Obama. She couldn’t be ordinary, I thought. Her life story might teach a thing or two. I learned much more. Her traditional upbringing echoed the same discipline, middle-class values, and focus on academics as the only ticket to stability and a better life, which I have experienced as a child growing up in the 90’s India. There is much more to the book, however, in this blog, I plan to highlight the top three thoughts that lingered on long after I had finished reading ‘Becoming’.

The New America

It was difficult to assimilate and absorb the 1960’s America portrayed by Michelle Obama in the ‘Becoming’. Had the ‘George Floyd incident & Black Lives Matter’ not occurred in 2021, I would have struggled to understand what it meant to be a child from the South side of Chicago or a person of color or to even deduce the meaning of a woman of color.

Two books that I have recently read, ‘Educated’ by Tara Westover and ‘Becoming’ by Michelle Obama painted a picture of the United States of America unknown to me previously. To someone from the opposite side of the world, Far East to be precise, like everyone else around me, I had devoured the picture-perfect affluent and prosperous society that America showcased through Hollywood. Thus, the new American portrayal contradicted ‘my image of the free world’ and shattered it in all its entirety.

I realized USA is as chaotic as any other society in the world with its own unique configurations. The challenges are labeled in myriad forms but the ground emotions unfurled time & again remain the same – HATRED. ‘Becoming’ highlighted that humans are taught to hate the ‘OTHER’ in numerous subtle ways. The ‘other’ can be of different gender, color, religion, nationality, language, caste, ability, or disability.

I discovered that the struggles of minorities remained the same be it in any part of the world. There’s a common emotion – FEAR. It was difficult to assimilate initially (due to my lack of exposure & knowledge) that Michelle’s grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts didn’t trust the authorities be it even doctors or police. Instead, they wore an invisibility cloak thus relying on their own community, working diligently & silently; raising kids in shadows, for the fear of being seen. I had to step back to comprehend she was talking of America before the 1950’s & 60’s. 

“Bear with me here, because this doesn’t necessarily get easier. It would be one if America was a simple place with a simple story. If I could narrate my part in it only through the lens of what was orderly and sweet. If there were no steps backwards. And if every sadness, when it came, turned out at least to be redemptive in the end. But that’s not America, and it’s not me, either. I am not going to try to bend this into any kind of perfect shape.”

The Whining In My Heart – Womanhood

In the second part of the book Michelle candidly elaborated the struggles, and the pitfalls of being a young bright woman who became wife to a workaholic husband that later catapults into the most sought-after man on the planet. Michelle reveals that as first lady she was supposed to smile, dress elegantly, portray herself as the soft force behind her man, and showcase to the world her impeccability at motherhood. She was not supposed to speak her mind, bare her heart and depict that she is vulnerable, fallible, gullible, and smart enough to even give it back. She couldn’t come across as sharp, intelligent, and a woman with a mind of her own. That was taboo! Yet like water she carved her own image within the vessel called The White House. Quoting her, “A first Lady’s power is a curious thing – as soft and undefined as the role itself. With my soft power, I was finding I could be strong.”

There’s an instant connect as a woman, when I read that as the first lady of the United States of America, Michelle tried to balance it ‘all’ at a much grander scale with even greater struggles. I felt like hugging her. Nothing more soothed my heart to know that even the ex-first lady finds it difficult, and gave me hope that it’s possible, not in a perfect way but in its own way. In her words, “It was possible, I knew, to live on two planes at once – to have one’s feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction of progress.” It made me think, women can be in any part of the world, they can be in any position, yet they are responsible for maintaining the stereotyped image of creating the work-home balance. I haven’t met a woman who hasn’t suffered to match the social image carved for her.

I have come to the conclusion that to us women, finding balance doesn’t depend upon cordial relationships or a motivating life partner, but on our own belief system. It dawned upon me that heart of heart I wanted to emulate my own mother, the first woman I had watched as a child just like I always wanted my husband to be like my father (the first man in my life). Lately, I observed, I always try to live onto that image in my head, despite being well aware that I am living in an entirely different time zone. Michelle admitted this by sharing that it all boiled down to matching her mother’s footsteps as a homemaker. I couldn’t agree more!

The Buzzing in my Head – Belongingness

This instance from the book ‘Becoming’ has been constantly buzzing in my head. All her life, Michelle Obama was conscious of her skin color, which time and again linked her to a far-off continent called Africa despite her lineage, which could be traced back to more than four generations of living on American soil. Thus, for her whole life, she was an African American despite being born and brought up in the USA. The status quo stayed until she went to Africa.

She visited Kenya to meet the grandmother of her then fiancé, Barack Obama. In the book, she reveals that the moment she landed, her skin color merged. But, despite the merger of skin, she couldn’t merge. She remained an outsider. How could that be? Well, her language, mannerisms, education, behavior, and clothes all highlighted the Americanness in her. She was different, a tourist in Kenya. The truth hit her, SHE BELONGED NOWHERE. She was an African American in America, and she  an African American in Kenya too!

This reality is a slap on the face. There are numerous people in the world facing belongingness issue every day. My heart cringes when I see discrimination around me, however subtle it may be. Race is just one domain of disparity. There are numerous others – gender, sexual orientation, religion, language, caste, nationality, ability, academic excellence, payroll, status in society, ability, disability, and so on.

Each one of us must ask this question: Where do we belong? If we meditate on this question, I am sure we will be able to touch base with Michelle Obama’s thought, something I would like to close this blog with- “It was as if we had stepped into the larger crosscurrents of culture and history, reminded suddenly of our relative smallness in the wider arc of time.”