I will vouch for you on this one point although not about feeling American culture but about immigration.
With my sister-in-law dating a Muslim Pakistani (whose family here have all gained U.S. citizenship and as far as I understand no longer have Pakistani citizenship but still visit family there in Pakistan) it's been interesting learning his perspective. We don't agree with everything going on (I detest how much she is excluded on the basis of being a white woman who is non-Muslim but that is not something I can change/talk to change either so I leave it out of my discussions with him).
He actually has a much much much stronger harder and harsher viewpoint on immigration than we do. He believes very strongly about the ways to come to the U.S. but our viewpoint comes from being here, his comes from being brought here as a tween working towards citizenship. He still practices a lot of things with being a Pakistani Muslim although he's assimilated in other ways here. One thing that hasn't really changed is the feelings he was raised upon with respects to India and as we learned (and didn't really learn this in school) Pakistan and India are not exactly two countries that get along.
IDK in any case there are just some things that I think he identifies more on what you tend to speak about what being American means in comparison to my husband, myself, my sister-in-law, etc. Part of that may really just come down to to the effort it took for his family to move here and gain their citizenship--he's hinted as much over time and sometimes outright has discussed legal immigration vs not (although I won't go any further on that part with Board rules).
