We didn't so much create our own identity as steal everyone else's who came over here. That's what makes us American: we're everything else and unoriginal. That's probably the real reason Canada's having issues with trying to get "their own identity."

It's like W. H. Auden said, "Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about." That's because every story has already been told. Just find a different way to tell it that makes it yours. That's all that culture is, a people finding a way of retelling tales that make them theirs.