Default American

In the Devos and Benaji reading, it was surprising that they found it was easier to pair European Americans celebrities with American symbols than with Asian American celebrities. Why is this the case? In study 1, they found that things like patriotism and being born in America was what made someone American, yet people still implicitly associate European Americans with American. Does this mean whiteness defines American and not the values that the participants rated as American? Does this apply to people outside the United States? Is it universal to think that whiteness is the default American or is it an American thing?

Something I read about that is kind of related to the discussion of default whiteness is anime characters. The creators of Anime do not put Asian stereotypical features on their characters which doesn't make it obvious that they are Japanese to the Americans (nothing marks it as the other). The reading said that Americans are often thought of as white even though they are suppose to be Japanese. They are however, seen as Japanese by the Japanese. The default human being to the Japanese is probably not whiteness, but Japanese.