That’s like saying “most of the people in South America weren’t from Spain, why should 16th century Spanish culture have an impact on South America?” It kind of

That’s like saying “most of the people in South America weren’t from Spain, why should 16th century Spanish culture have an impact on South America?” It kind of makes sense until you start counting how many people speak Spanish! The puritans are part of the founding myth of America. Ask any school child who founded the colonies and they’ll tell you the pilgrims. That kind of impact lingers. Nobody ever mentions Dutch settlers in what’s now New York or the Spanish in what’s now Florida. That doesn’t mean we’re literally puritans (which wasn’t my claim anyways), but that does mean that the echoes of their culture still have an impact on us today. And, as others have kindly pointed out, “Protestant work ethic” is considered a valid term for the same historical/social trends by academics.