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Michelle’s father
Michelle and Barack’s younger daughter, born on June 10, 2001. Sasha’s arrival in the family prompts Michelle to evaluate her priorities and to wonder whether the family would better be served by Michelle staying home. However, Michelle then takes baby Sasha to a job interview to demonstrate her needs for a competitive salary (to afford childcare) and flexible time to be with her daughters. She gets the job, and decides to remain at work. Sasha is seven years old when Barack is elected president, and like her sister Malia, experiences both the privileges and the responsibility of growing up in the public eye in the White House.
Sasha Obama Quotes in Becoming
The Becoming quotes below are all either spoken by Sasha Obama or refer to Sasha Obama. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 14
Quotes
Somewhat brazenly, I suppose, I laid all this out in my interview with Michael Riordan, the hospital’s new president. I even brought three-month-old Sasha along with me, too. I can’t remember the circumstances exactly, whether I couldn’t find a babysitter that day or whether I’d even bothered to try. Sasha was little, though, and still needed a lot from me. She was a fact of my life—a cute, burbling, impossible-to-ignore fact— and something compelled me almost literally to put her on the table for this discussion. Here is me, I was saying, and here also is my baby.
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Chapter 20
Quotes
I understood how lucky we were to be living this way. The master suite in the residence was bigger than the entirety of the upstairs apartment my family had shared when I was growing up on Euclid Avenue. There was a Monet painting hanging outside my bedroom door and a bronze Degas sculpture in our dining room. I was a child of the South Side, now raising daughters who slept in rooms designed by a high-end interior decorator and who could custom order their breakfast from a chef.
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Chapter 24
Quotes
He was a good father, dialed in and consistent in ways his own father had never been, but there were also things he’d sacrificed along the way. He’d entered into parenthood as a politician. His constituents and their needs had been with us all along.
It had to hurt a little bit, realizing he was so close to having more freedom and more time, just as our daughters were beginning to step away. But we had to let them go. The future was theirs, just as it should be.
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Epilogue
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For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end. I became a mother, but I still have a lot to learn from and give to my children. I became a wife, but I continue to adapt to and be humbled by what it means to truly love and make a life with another person. I have become, by certain measures, a person of power, and yet there are moments still when I feel insecure or unheard.
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Sasha Obama Character Timeline in Becoming
The timeline below shows where the character Sasha Obama appears in Becoming. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 14
In 2001, Sasha is born, also as a result of IVF. Michelle’s hope for her two daughters is...
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...able to afford child care. And time with her daughters, which she emphasizes by bringing Sasha with her to the interview. The hospital president, Michael Riordan, seems to understand, and he...
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Michelle becomes officially frustrated with Barack’s regularly arriving home so late, when Sasha and Malia’s eyes are already drooping, and with waiting alone for dinner. She is let...
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Chapter 17
...by signs along Main Street reading “Happy Birthday, Malia!” People are kind to Malia and Sasha and respectful toward Michelle and Barack, even though many admit that voting for a Democrat...
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...afternoon in Butte ends, the family does a TV interview together. The innocent comments that Sasha and Malia make immediately endear them to people, but Michelle and Barack instantly regret pushing...
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...enough about their daughter. But Malia sees it differently—she had spent the day outdoors with Sasha, surrounded by people that love her. She had seen a parade, and she now had...
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Chapter 18
...for McCain, but more start to go to Barack. Illinois goes to Barack. Michelle, Malia, Sasha, and Michelle’s mother wait with Barack as the updates trickle in. They are both struck...
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...When they arrive, 200,000 people have come to see him speak. Barack, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha walk out onto the stage, standing before “a giant, jubilant mass of Americans who were...
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Chapter 19
...and nutrition on a larger scale. But first, she has to begin finding Malia and Sasha a new school.
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...visited the White House once before: when Barack was in the senate, she, Malia, and Sasha had taken a tour. It was massive and opulent, with 132 rooms spread over six...
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The Obamas move to Washington right after their Christmas holiday so that Sasha and Malia can start school just as their new classmates return from winter break. Both...
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Michelle is relieved that Malia and Sasha both come home happy after the first day of school, and the next few days....
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Chapter 21
Over the summer of 2009, Michelle takes Sasha and Malia on trips together around their new city, rather than putting them in day...
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Chapter 22
...at the White House, and they are let free on the lawn. When Michelle, Barack, Sasha, and Malia go out to see them, assured that they have bene sedated, the cats...
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...room where Michelle likes to have tea. No one is hurt, but Michelle’s mother and Sasha were home. For weeks Michelle looks at the crater in the bulletproof glass in the...
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Chapter 23
As the summer begins, Michelle flies to South Africa with Sasha and Malia. She meets health workers, tours the Apartheid museum, and is introduced to Desmond...
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...held for the victims. Instead, she clings to her own children—the day of the vigil Sasha is performing in The Nutcracker, and Michelle is grateful to be able to watch her.
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Chapter 24
...the night. Michelle usually tries not to check in with the agents on Malia and Sasha’s whereabouts, wanting to make sure that the girls trust their agents. She knows her girls...
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Sasha and Malia come of age in a unique time. The iPhone was released four months...
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