In 1990 when Obama was elected President of the Harvard Law Review there were a bunch of articles about him in major newspapers. They all listed Hawaii as his place of birth.
Here’s the New York Times article:
First Black Elected to Head Harvard’s Law Review
By FOX BUTTERFIELD, Special to The New York Times
Published: February 06, 1990
The Harvard Law Review, generally considered the most prestigious in the country, elected the first black president in its 104-year history today. The job is considered the highest student position at Harvard Law School.
The new president of the Review is Barack Obama, a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University who spent four years heading a community development program for poor blacks on Chicago’s South Side before enrolling in law school. His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii.
‘’The fact that I’ve been elected shows a lot of progress,’’ Mr. Obama said today in an interview. ‘’It’s encouraging.
‘’But it’s important that stories like mine aren’t used to say that everything is O.K. for blacks. You have to remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black students with at least equal talent who don’t get a chance,’’ he said, alluding to poverty or growing up in a drug environment.
[excerpt]
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html
Here’s the 1990 Chicago Tribune article about Obama and the Harvard Law Review which also lists Hawaii as his place of birth:
Activist In Chicago Now Heads Harvard Law Review
February 07, 1990|By Michael J. Ybarra.
Just a few years ago, Barack Obama was helping residents of the Altgeld Gardens housing development challenge the Chicago Housing Authority over asbestos in their apartments.
On Monday, the 28-year-old Obama was named president of the Harvard Law Review, the nation`s most prestigious student legal journal. Obama is the first black elected to the post in its 104-year history.
The Review is considered one of the most authoritative of the law school reviews and is a forum for judges and scholars. It is also a high-powered springboard for aspiring lawyers. Its presidents usually go on serve as a clerk for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for a year and then as a clerk for an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
It took 91 years to elect a woman, and it wasn`t until last year that an Asian was elected by his fellow editors to the position.
For Obama, it`s another victory in the fight against ``powerlessness.``
``People don`t feel that they can have much impact,`` he said in a phone interview from the Review`s offices. ``I want to get people involved in having a say in how their lives are run. More and more of that needs to be done.``
As executive director of the Developing Communities Project, he had attempted to persuade the residents of Altgeld Gardens to become more involved in their community. Obama worked for the Developing Communities Project for four years.
``I`ll never forget the amount of feeling he showed,`` recalled Johnnie Owens, who became the group`s director when Obama left for law school in 1988. ``He honestly evaluated his performance and made up his mind to do better.``
Born in Hawaii to the late Barack Obama, once a finance minister in Kenya, and Ann Dunham, an American anthropologist, Obama went to Columbia University before moving to Chicago to work as a community organizer.
[excerpt]
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-02-07/news/9001110408_1_ann-dunham-chicago-housing-authority-barack-obama
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/09/barack-obama-ha.html
"The son of a Kenyan economist and an American anthropologist,"
"Born in Hawaii, where his parents met in college, Obama was named Barack (blessed in Arabic) after his father."
"Two years later, Obama's parents separated and he moved to a small village outside Jakarta, Indonesia, with his mother, an anthropologist."
"After six years in Indonesia, Obama was sent back to the United States to live with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii in preparation for college."
If you want to see the actual 1990 article, here is a link to the original LA Times article. but you have to pay to see it.
Or you could probably get a copy from the microfilm rolls at a public library.