Maya Soetoro-Ng is a local Oahu girl, a schoolteacher and the mother of a four-year-old girl, Suhaila. She’s also Barack Obama’s half-sister. Barack and Maya share the same mother, Ann Dunham, who died from ovarian cancer in 1995. Maya’s father was Indonesian.

(Photo by George Waialeale)

Soetoro-Ng has helped Obama campaign in Hawaii throughout the election process. Maya attended several fundraisers on his behalf, including two on Maui. One attendee to a Maui event reported that she is really smart, funny, down-to-earth and personable–a lot like her brother, but even funnier.

Soetoro-Ng teaches at La Pietra School for Girls, where she offers instruction in World Cultures to ninth graders, eleventh grade U.S. History and an elective called Peacemakers and Non-Violence for grades 9-12. She has been married for six years to Konrad Ng, a teacher in the University of Hawaii’s new film school and a Chinese-Canadian, who just gained his U.S. citizenship. Their family is, if nothing else, diverse.