2. I am of Polish and Italian ancestry, yet speak English as my first language.
3. Canadians are culturally "different" from those in the lower 48, no matter what their ancestry is. Personally, I think this is a good thing.
What are you so upset "aboot?" ;-)
...not upset. I’m trying to promote some thought. What is it that makes us American in the USA sense? It’s loyalty—allegiance to the USA. How long does it take people various cultures to get there?
I lived in a community that flew thousands of windsocks with Italian flag colors after five generations in our nation (not to mention other emphases of loyalty to the same ethnic group). There were no Italian names in the local National Guard company. Organized crime was more of a problem there than in most other communities.
Canadians of former colonial Canadian heritage are nearly assimilated when they land and do so fully within months. If your comments had something to do with a consideration of Frankophones from Canada, even they assimilate fully to US loyalty within a few months.
As for Polish people, those who came to the USA generations ago showed exclusive loyalty to the USA very quickly. Some of the more recent immigrants from Poland are having a harder time with that (due to domination of Poland by Russian culture for so long).
In the past, Mexicans became loyal fairly quickly, but we bore the nuisances of their language and/or culture for some time. Now, many of the newer ones are rather stubborn against assimilating—very expensive.
BTW, my first ancestor of the same surname landed in America during the 1600s. I’ve often been described by people of European heritage and loyalty as being a “Heinz 57.”