A diverse First Family

The following is an excerpt; for full story, listen to audio.

When President Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, he was surrounded by family. That family was a rainbow of colors and ethnicities including his Kenyan step-grandmother, his Indonesian-American half-sister, Michelle Obama’s black cousins and brother, his Chinese-Canadian brother-in-law, and a rabbi. It is quite a change from the typical white Protestant presidential family.

"The Takeaway" discusses this changing American portrait with "New York Times" writer Jodi Kantor: "This is an amazingly diverse family that is multiracial, multi-religious, and their geographic span is incredible."

Kantor says the diversity of the Obama family reflects America: "In a way it’s not very radical at all, because the country has always been amazingly diverse … and yet that was never quite reflected in our ruling class … the White House has been strangely impervious to the diversity of this country."

In her "New York Times" article on the Obama family, Kantor writes: "Though the world is recognizing the inauguration of the first African-American president, the story is a more complex narrative, about immigration, social mobility and the desegregation of one of the last divided institutions in American life: the family. It is a tale of self-determination, full of refusals to follow the tracks laid by history or religion or parentage."

Read Kantor’s article: In First Family, a Nation’s Many Faces.

"The Takeaway" is PRI’s new national morning news program, delivering the news and analysis you need to catch up, start your day, and prepare for what’s ahead. The show is a co-production of WNYC and PRI, in editorial collaboration with the BBC, The New York Times Radio, and WGBH.

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