[gojomo]

It'd be helpful for ~nxb to be specific about which country cultures have this problem. But of all the people you know who don't think this way, how many are representative examples of a (non-US) national culture? (And if you know them well enough to judge this, are they perhaps outliers who left another culture?)

The US – and perhaps especially (your home) Texas or more generally the US west – is relatively open to the idea of excellence coming from anyone and in arbitrary combinations, compared to many other more fatalistic/hierarchical/caste-oriented cultures.