Obama's hapa sister talks tolerance

Maya Soetoro-Ng, Barack Obama's half-sister, is half Indonesian. Which means, as Angry Asian Man says, she's one of us. And she has some refreshingly broad-minded things to say about race and religion in a New York Times interview. An excerpt:

Your mom has been described as an atheist. I wouldn’t have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books — the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching — and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute.

You didn’t mention the Koran in that list, although Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. I should have mentioned the Koran. Mom didn’t really emphasize the Koran, but we read little parts of it. We did listen to morning prayers in Indonesia.

Are you worried about mentioning Islam because it has already been evoked by negative campaigners trying to tarnish your brother? I’m not worried. I don’t want to deny Islam. I think it’s obviously very important that we have an understanding of Islam, a better understanding. At the same time, it has been erroneously attached to my brother. The man has been a Christian for 20 years.

...

Do you think of your brother as black? Yes, because that is how he has named himself. Each of us has a right to name ourselves as we will.

Do you think of yourself as white? No. I’m half white, half Asian. I think of myself as hybrid. People usually think I’m Latina when they meet me. That’s what made me learn Spanish.

UPDATE: From the Obama campaign's announcement of its AAPI National Leadership Council, here are some more words from Soetoro-Ng and another Asian American Obama relative:

“My brother is the only candidate with an intimate connection with Asia and the Pacific,” says Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s sister of Indonesian descent. “Our mother’s work and values brought us into contact with a wide range of worlds. The movement of our childhood and adolescence required that we be able to walk between worlds and, in particular, to communicate broadly within Asian and Pacific Islands cultures. Barack understands the values, needs, and expectations that are unique to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”

“There hasn’t been a presidential candidate who understands the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experience as intuitively as Barack,” says Konrad Ng, Obama’s brother-in-law of Chinese descent. “I hope that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders will recognize this opportunity to support a candidate who can speak to our diverse communities and bring real and beneficial change to our country. It is time that we have someone in the White House who can do it all.”