We Are Water unfolds in the early years of the Barack Obama presidency, a period marked by shifting political expectations, economic instability, and rapidly evolving conversations about gender, race, and equality. Obama campaigned on a platform of “hope and change” that resonated with voters weary of post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 2008 stock market crash, caused in large part by a speculation-fueled bubble in the housing market, hit just weeks before the November elections, deepening the country’s anger about the status quo and helping secure Obama's decisive electoral victory. However, over the years that followed, some became disillusioned with Obama, feeling that he had failed to deliver on key campaign promises (ending wars overseas, securing a public healthcare option, etc.) while catering to entrenched political and economic interests. The novel’s references to the 2008 election and its aftermath capture this ambivalence, as characters reflect on the “legacy of those fallen towers” and a broader “national feeling of futility” (59).

One of the most immediate sociohistorical pressures shaping the narrative is marriage equality. At the time of the book’s publication, several states had already passed legislation legalizing marriage between partners of the same gender, but Obergefell v Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that would expand marriage equality to all 50 states, was not issued until 2015. The debate surrounding marriage equality is thus a live issue in the narrative, where the wedding of Annie Oh and Viveca Christopholous-Shabbas is a culturally charged event that exposes generational divides and ideological tensions. Conservative media commentary within the novel satirizes the rigid gender roles and religious moralism associated with right-wing opposition to marriage equality.

Racism, too, looms large in We Are Water. In the immediate aftermath of Obama’s election, much sociopolitical commentary centered on the idea that the inauguration of the US’s first Black president marked the beginning of a new, “post-racial” era—or at least represented a significant step in that direction. In the years that followed, however, this promise became another source of disillusionment, as events like the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin proved that racism remained a guiding force in American life. In the novel, this legacy of racial violence, embodied in the Josephus Jones storyline, underscores how contemporary conflicts remain rooted in unresolved historical injustice. The Oh family’s private trauma takes place against this backdrop, suggesting that personal suffering cannot be separated from the broader systems that shape daily life.