Hmm. I see what you are saying. I think we from the USA project out onto the rest of the world the unresolved issues that we have here. We assume that the fault lines of other societies are the same as ours, but in-group/out-group identities differ in each place and sometimes differ situationally in the same place. Here where I live, I notice much greater differences between urban and rural or working class and middle class than I do descendants of immigrants of one place versus another. However, if I were a person of color, then that might be the salient point of difference that I notice more.

As a person from the USA, when I am in another country, I think I identify first as a person from the USA and then maybe as a person from Wisconsin. My ancestry would not enter into the conversation except with other people from the USA. So yeah, your friend might still have his mind in the US.

You've given me some to think about - and I'm always looking for topics for my monthly column. It would be a little ironic to write a column questioning why I write the columns, but a little introspection is not a bad thing.