I recently watched an American documentary about the 1944 D-Day Landings. One of the US infantrymen interviewed had an obvious German accent. He was described as being "of German descent". But was he brought up in Germany? Not necessarily. I remember talking to an old Ukrainian guy in Edmonton. He spoke English with a thick Eastern European accent. But it turned out he'd been born and raised in Canada. He had the accent because all the adults in the village he was brought up in spoke English with a thick European accent.