President Obama and his family paid a New Year’s Day visit to the East-West Center to view an exhibition on the anthropological field work that the president’s late mother, EWC Alumna Ann Dunham, conducted in Indonesia. The family also visited the Center’s well-known Japanese garden.
The president, his wife and daughters, and his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng and her family spent about half an hour in a private viewing of the East-West Center Gallery exhibition, which includes photographs and notebooks from Dunham’s years of field research, as well as artifacts from her personal collection, including examples of metal-smithing, jewelry, leatherwork, textiles, ceramics, and basketry.
At the president’s suggestion, the family also made an unscheduled visit to the Center’s Japanese garden, where the family held a memorial service for Dunham after she passed away in 1995.
- U.S. President Barack Obama and his family visit the East-West Center on New Year’s Day. (Photo: AFP, Mandel Ngan)
The East-West Center Association Blog 