Many new faces in America’s extended first family

Courtesy of Maya Soetoro-Ng

President Barack Obama hugged his half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng at her December 2003 wedding to Konrad Ng (third from right) in Hawaii. From left, his daughters, Sasha and Malia; his grandmother Madelyne Dunham (seated); Konrad’s parents, Joan and Howard Ng, and brother, Perry Ng; and Michelle Obama in Kualoa Ranch, Hawaii. When President Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, he was surrounded by an extended clan that would have shocked past generations of Americans and instantly redrew the image of a first family for future ones. As they convened to take their family’s final step in its journey from Africa into a White House built partly by slaves, the group seemed as if it had stepped out of the pages of Obama’s memoir — no longer the disparate kin of a young man wondering how he fit in, but the embodiment of a new president’s promise of change.