What Barack reacts to here is the idea that, in Kenya, Blackness is the norm. In the United States, Barack consistently feels like an outsider and has to watch the way he speaks and acts to fit in with white peers—but here, he doesn’t have to be on guard in the same way. Rather, when the vendor identifies Barack as American, Barack realizes he might not be African enough to fit in here—but the vendor seems to accept it when Auma clarifies that Barack is Kenyan.