[bdhe]

Cut him some slack. According to his comment he's 16. He's viewing it from a high school lens. Whether or not being an "American" 20-something year old requires you to do what was mentioned above, some of his points are interesting.

Immigrants make choices constantly -- subconsciously or otherwise -- on how much to indulge in the local culture, and how much to stick to your familiar roots. Unfortunately, there can be strong feedback loops that develop quickly; one immigrant group is tightly knit because they find it harder to bridge the gap and the gap gets harder to bridge because Americans find the immigrant groups "too ethnically knit" and closed to bother. Not to mention that there's a natural tendency to be a little apprehensive towards someone new with their own set of customs.

[Cookingboy]

I don't know whether you are just being facetious, but I'm not 16. I was simply comparing my brother to other "engineering nerds" in his age group, and I find him sharing very limited hobbies or interests when compared to kids who grew up here. It's not like he doesn't like social networks, he just doesn't use American ones. It's not like he doesn't watch TV shows, but just not the American ones. It's not like he doesn't eat out, just that he strongly prefers Chinese food.

My examples were very limited, they are only used to illustrate a point, but not to make a broad statement.

[huac]

I think the bigger point is that high school is a bigger influence on how 'assimilated' people are. College is definitely a time of personal growth, but I think high school is even more so a time of growth.

Maybe at 14, your friends aren't locked into FB/WeChat/etc, and the network effect isn't as strong to attract you to one cultural set or another. The other theory I have is that with how much larger colleges are, and in particular how many more international students there are at the collegiate level, there is less pressure to 'assimilate' and find 'American' friends. I've definitely noticed that international students hang out with other internationals a lot in college. It's really common to hear Portugese or Korean in my library, for example. Having some support base probably makes it easier to hang out only with those who are super similar to you.