Re: Math, chemistry, engineering?
One of America's unique strengths has been many years of absorbing people from all over the world, filtering out most of the crap and keeping a lot of the good parts. An astounding amount of our language and culture hails from nations other than just England. As just one of many examples, the culture and language of the cowboy, considered an archetype of everything American, is deeply Hispanic.
America, like many alloys, is stronger than the individual metals from which it is comprised.
It helped that the immigrants were all too eager to leave the "crap" of their old lives behind themselves. Generally, that's why they were leaving in the first place.