half-black, but that half African, not African-American, so completely unconnected to African-American history and personal experiences, no matter how he tried to graft it on later;

the adopted American child of a local Indonesian, and so never completely part of the local society, no matter that he went to local schools and played with the village children. I'm sure it didn't help that his mother must have provided educational enrichment at home not available to his classmates, which meant he knew and believed things they didn't ("No, Barrykins, djinns are not a constant factor in physics problems, I don't care what your teacher says. Do it her way for the homework grade, but do it again my way if you want to go to college some day. So often these quaint local customs are counterproductive, you know that!");

as the child of a local employee of an international company, where the other Americans were there on ex-pat plans that provided a completely different standard of living... Little Barry would have been invited to the pool parties and other corporate functions, but probably never invited to play dates, because really, one doesn't mix with the locals like that, it gives them ideas above their station. This would not have mixed well with his mother's communist and anthropological ideas, not to mention widely known American ideas on innate equality.