There are some unique features of American culture that can only really be appreciated as an American, which is why Philip and Elizabeth were pushed into this program of extensive practice and indoctrination of subsuming their identities as Misha and Nadezhda in favor of Philip and Elizabeth.

Even Canadians, for all that they can take on a veneer of Americanization, are still essentially apart in some undefinable ways from Americans unless they actually live and act as Americans.