Molly

http://voice.paly.net/view_story.php?id=6106

Henry M. Gunn High School senior Molly Kawahata is considered by many to be a model of student activism. She raised eyebrows across the entire city of Palo Alto when she won the Obama Essay Contest this year describing what Obama could do for the United States as president

http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2007/11/13/palo-alto-teen-wins-obama-essay-contest/

The California presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has announced that Molly Kawahata, a senior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, beat out peers from across Northern California to win the campaign’s essay contest “What it would mean to me if Barack Obama were elected our next President.”

As the contest’s winner, Kawahata will be among the speakers at the candidate’s grassroots fundraiser this Wednesday evening at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium — an event the campaign says will be his last visit to Northern California until after the Iowa caucuses.

The essay contest entries were judged by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon of Berkeley, who with his wife, author Ayelet Waldman, had cosponsored an Obama fundraiser in Oakland back in June. “All these essays show the powerful sense of connection young people feel to Barack Obama, because he is directly addressing their deepest concerns, their most powerful hopes, and the boundless idealism that is their greatest resource,” Chabon said in a news release.

Kawahata, formerly a student member of the Palo Alto Unified School District Board, has been involved with the Obama campaign’s grassroots organizing in Anna Eshoo’s 14th Congressional District.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUU9lbXiHXw

Molly's speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K_ntZEPlHI&feature=related

Obama from a Mom's point of view

I want my children to hear what Obama has to say.

I'm a mom with two daughters, an 8 and a 5 years old. They are growing up in a world that is vastly different than mine.

I grew up in a parochial school, it was all white. My neighborhood was all white.

Obama embodies my new neighborhood. My daughters' school is 25% non-USA/caucasian. Their best friends are from India and Poland, they play with the Japanese children across the street. One friend just moved here from China, her father is a French cook. Another friend is black, adopted into a white family. Another has parents from Lebanon and Egypt. My kids don't think about it, these are just their friends. Their world is global already.

Obama understands this integrated society, and can speak to our kids. He teaches our kids to have compassion and empathy. He teaches them fortitude. Here's an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a 7 year old boy:

"I hope you always remember to seize every opportunity to make the world better. Now, making the world better is not always easy, and you will probably find in your life that it is more comfortable to ignore injustices that don't affect you directly. Don't take that comfortable road. Challenge yourself to make a difference.

If you don't already know what it means, I want you to look up the word "empathy" in the dictionary. I believe we don't have enough empathy in our world today, and it is up to your generation to change that.

I leave you with three bits of advice that will make your life more fufilling: Look out for other people, even when it does not directly benefit you; strive to make a difference everywhere you go; and get back up every time you are knocked down."

I want my kids to hear this, I want them to live this.

Our children are listening. Here's a video from a Bronx high school of kids learning to overcome race, and feeling inspired, after listening to Obama DNC in 2004, and his "A More Perfect Union" speech:

I also want my kids to know how to work on a team, to collaborate and cooperate. I want my kids to be able to understand the whole picture, to listen to differing opinions. I want them to be involved in the community, not just consuming wages from a job. I want them to be politically engaged, to understand with a critical eye the influences that try to shape their opinion.

Obama is inspiring this. Here is an essay written by Molly Kawahata, a senior at Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto, CA.:

Senator Obama often talks about his children and what they mean to him, and I think Malia and Sasha are driving forces behind his desire to seek the United States presidency. He looks out from his Senate seat in Illinois and sees a broken system, an underrepresented process, a population hungry for change. And he doesn't want his children to have to live in that world. We as Americans have become so jaded, so disenchanted with the political process that we are left with low expectations for our government's ability to serve us. And so we settle. We accept America's divide state as it is. We sit down; we watch, and we simply hope there isn't too much damage.

But that is all changing.

We are no longer waiting, but actively working, to improve our current state. Senator Obama has instilled in us that we, as a nation, as a government, as a people, can do better.

I will be casting my first vote for Senator Obama, and I feel fortunate that, within my lifetime, a figure resembling those I've only read about in history books or heard about my parents' generation has emerged. I have never seen anyone of this caliber. When our children, like Malia and Sasha, have grown up and inherited the world we left them, they will look back at man who started uniting the country before he even became president. And they will read about him in history books and recognize that there was a time when the American people united from the ground up, and all together said, "We can do better."

Here is a video where Molly presents her essay:

Molly's essay beat out peers from across Northern California to win the campaign’s essay contest “What it would mean to me if Barack Obama were elected our next President.” The essay contest entries were judged by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon of Berkeley, who with his wife, author Ayelet Waldman, had cosponsored an Obama fundraiser in Oakland back in June.

“All these essays show the powerful sense of connection young people feel to Barack Obama, because he is directly addressing their deepest concerns, their most powerful hopes, and the boundless idealism that is their greatest resource,” Chabon said in a news release.

I want my kids to hear Obama for the next 8 years. I want my kids to know how to step aside from meaningless divisions that consume our energy and distract us from the real issues. I want my kids to hear:

There is not a liberal America, and a conservative American, there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America, a latino America, an Asian America, there's the United States of America.

Obama's support

pbs.com

DAVID AXELROD: He has this ability to walk into any room whether it's in the inner city, a white ethnic ward, a high toned suburban living room, or a downstate veteran's hall, and just relate perfectly well to everyone in the room and it's a great gift.
Obama's multiracial, multicultural background
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Part of Obama's ability to relate easily with all types of people may stem from his own multiracial, multicultural background. His Kansas born mother, met his Kenyan born father at the University of Hawaii in 1959. The couple lived in Hawaii until Barack was two, when his father left to study at Harvard and returned to Kenya without his family. Barack experienced another culture when he left for Indonesia with his mother and her new husband, and soon a half-sister. At age ten, he was sent back to Hawaii to attend the prestigious Punahoe Prep School while living with his grandparents. He saw his father only once before he was killed in an automobile accident. His father's death prompted him to travel to Kenya to try and understand the country and connect with his large Kenyan family. At age 33, he wrote of his unusual heritage in a memoir, "Dreams from my Father," a story of race and inheritance. Michelle Obama says as chaotic as her husband's early life was, he did have a strong support system. MICHELLE OBAMA: I see his very untraditional family and that worked because he had the support systems. I think there's no doubt that he struggled, but it probably made him hungrier to strive to be great. So I think all of that combined just led to the outcomes of this wonderful stable individual who is very calm, very rooted in his values, very respectful of others and incredibly loving.
A career in politics
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: After college, Obama took a job in Chicago organizing in low-income communities that had been hard hit by the loss of thousands of jobs in the steel mills. Wanting to be more effective, he headed to Harvard Law School where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. Recruited by top law firms across the country, he chose a small Chicago firm specializing in civil rights and economic development in the minority community. But Judson Miner, a law firm partner, says it wasn't long before a career in politics was on the horizon. JUDSON MINER, Miner, Barnhill, and Galland: He was so talented that I think it was reasonably clear early on that he was going to be under a lot of pressure at some point to jump into government or politics. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Three years later Obama was in the Illinois state senate representing a predominantly African American district on Chicago's south side. BARACK OBAMA: I just want to stand in strong support of this bill; I'm working for a number of the organizations throughout the state that are trying to deal with this homeless issue. ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Today he focuses on the same issues of social justice in his U.S. Senate campaign. BARACK OBAMA: If there's a child on the south side of Chicago that can't read, that makes a difference in my life even if it's not my child.
National attention
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Given his stance on social issues plus his early opposition to the war in Iraq, his Republican opponent immediately charged that he was far too liberal for most Illinois voters. But shortly after the Republican primary, winner Jack Ryan said he would drop out when salacious details were revealed in his divorce records. While Republicans scrambled to find a new candidate, Obama was catapulted onto the national stage. His impressive victory, his credentials and the possibility of his becoming the only African American currently in the Senate brought national attention culminating with the invitation to give the convention's keynote address. BARACK OBAMA: I'm going to be one of many voices. And so although it's called the keynote address, obviously the real keynote address is John Kerry's acceptance of the nomination.
Democratic National Convention keynote address
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: His media advisor says Obama will handle all the attention. DAVID AXELROD: It would be easy to become intoxicated by all that attention, but Barack is very grounded. He always says that having grown up in Hawaii that he's learned that the tide comes in and the tide goes out, and when the tide comes in you just ride the wave, and he's riding the wave right now. But he knows, I think, that some of this is kind of illusory, ephemeral and that it's not really what's important. BARACK OBAMA: I'm not sure it can happen? You just tell them, what are you going to tell them? Yes, we can, yes, we can! ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Well known now to Illinois voters, Obama introduces himself to the nation with his keynote address tonight.