Children of culturally inept immigrants do fine if they can learn the ropes from native-born peers.

Judge as of 2002 against research on how immigrant children acculturate. TRUE: the research shows that children of immigrant parents who lack the host culture's skills (language, customs) generally pick up native language, accent and cultural competence from native-born peers and turn out well, i.e. the parents' lack of acculturation does not hold them back when they have access to native peers. MOSTLY TRUE: the peer-acculturation finding (e.g. children acquire the peer accent and language rather than the parents') is well supported, but 'do just fine' overstates outcomes in some areas. MIXED: the evidence supports peer acquisition of language and culture, but outcomes such as education, income or wellbeing are mixed or depend heavily on other factors. MOSTLY FALSE: the claim rests on a narrow finding (e.g. accent acquisition) stated as general good outcomes, or is stated as established when the evidence is inconclusive. FALSE: the evidence shows such children generally do poorly despite contact with native peers, or that peers play no significant role.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 The Gene Responsibility Psychology Today · 1 January 1998

   “She likes to use language as an example: the children of immigrants, she notes, will readily learn to speak the language of the new country without an accent.”

2. E2 The Gene Responsibility Psychology Today · 1 January 1998

   “They may continue to speak in their parents' tongue when at home, but over time the language of their peers will become their "native" language.”

3. E3 What Holds Back the Second Generation? The Intergenerational Transmission of Language Human Capital Among Immigrants PubMed Central (working paper using 2000 U.S. Census and NLSY data) · 1 February 2001

   “Evidently, growing up and attending school in the U.S. are not sufficient for developing English-language proficiency.”

4. E4 What Holds Back the Second Generation? The Intergenerational Transmission of Language Human Capital Among Immigrants PubMed Central (working paper using 2000 U.S. Census and NLSY data) · 1 February 2001

   “We find that children with limited-English-proficient parents are more likely to drop out of high school, be below their age-appropriate grade and not attend preschool.”

E1 and E2 report a theorist's view that immigrant children pick up the new country's language and accent from peers. That covers the narrow language-acquisition part of the claim, but it is a secondary account of one theorist's view, not an outcome study. The empirical paper using U.S. data (E3, E4) finds that growing up and going to school in the U.S. is not enough to make these children proficient in English. It also finds that children of parents with limited English are more likely to drop out of high school and to be below the grade expected for their age. Taken together, the claim appears to extend a narrow language finding into general good outcomes that this evidence does not support. However, the paper does not directly test whether access to native-born peers changes those outcomes.