Yeah. Speaking as an immigrant, arriving here in 1963 (at the age of nine), I was very puzzled by the pledge of allegiance stuff. I had gone through two school systems (Romania, France) and I had never met up with as much in-your-face nationalism as I did in the United States. The actual "culture" that I identified as American, was clearly more urban-modern than anything else (jazz, rock, films).
After living here for thirty eight years, some threads of "identity" have emerged: positive ones, like the belief (and ability) that if you try hard enough you can tackle anything, the anti-bullshit/muckraking tradition and....on the negative side the (often) deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance--- the actual pride in being stupid, which I have not encountered anywhere else so far.
Joanna Bujes