This article presents the author's acceptance address for receiving the Peter Shaw award. In this address, the author, an immigrant sociologist, tells how this award helps to resolve questions and uncertainties he has as to the degree to which he can or should consider himself an American--about the extent to which he has become a part, a member of the society. It represents a token of acceptance and appreciation by a group of fellow intellectuals with whom he has much in common and who stand for authentic American values and beliefs. The author's attraction to these values--and the institutions protecting them--contributed greatly to his living in the United States. In conclusion, the author suggests that one doesn't have to be a former refugee from a communist country in order to subscribe to the values and convictions that brought NAS into existence. The members of this organization and the millions of Americans who support what NAS stands for without knowing that it exists, prove that being critical of orthodoxies, conformity, double standards, and self-righteous intolerance need not be a by-product of growing up in a highly repressive and openly intolerant society. (Contains 1 note.)