is chinese american culture so... bubbled? Even with regards to chinese food? You can get mind-blowing chinese/indo/thai/viet etc food like anywhere in the Sydney CBD and I dare to say it seems a cut above orange chicken or the tales I hear about american-chinese food...
Well, the proximity of Australia to China makes it a little unfair...
The American Chinese cuisine (orange chicken, general tsao, etc) has interesting history because of how it developed. It really started in SF, when workers were brought here or came here to pan for gold and eventually build raid roads. The food evolved to try and fit into "American" preferences - everything very fried, greasy, and sweet... with a shit load of carbs. Of course, the American Chinese community developed their own kind of dishes, based upon the recipes from China, but sourced with local ingredients as a lot of things used in Chinese cooking across all regions were unavailable here. So, it kind of forked in two, but I think that the local American Chinese food unique to SF is best in SF and sadly not as readily available outside of that area (even in SoCal, because by the time SoCal became heavily populated with Asians there was already the means to bring over people and food from Asia so there was no need to modify recipes quite as much.)
You can get amazing Asian food now in the US, in a style must more reminiscent of the meals in Asia, with ingredients that used to be found exclusively in Asian countries, but those places tend only to survive/thrive in places that have a heavy Asian American concentration. Otherwise, yeah in bumfuck Idaho, good luck trying to find anything but orange chicken lol.
Asian foods are ever evolving in the US, though. Korean fried chicken/Japanese fried chicken is a staple in LA, and it's definitely not "traditional," though how can you call it non authentic?