Historically, ‘race’ has been a common source of information upon which we categorise others and it is often linked to a person’s ethnicity. However, in a world of immigration and globalisation this is problematic, as in modern pluralistic societies ancestry and identity may be increasingly divergent. The present research investigated how host societies form impressions of racial minority immigrant groups and how they categorise new immigrants, as well as generations-deep immigrants. Six separate studies were conducted, drawing on established theories of acculturation, nonverbal accent and stereotyping. Results supported predictions that enculturation can be an immediately salient cue for categorisation, even at zero acquaintance.