East Asians often define their ingroups based on preexisting social relationships (e.g., friends, family), whereas North Americans define their ingroups largely based on broader social categories (e.g., race, nationality; Brewer & Yuki, 2007). In the present research we examined the consequences of this cultural difference for own-group face recognition biases. In Study 1, European Canadians and first-generation East Asian Canadians were assigned to minimal groups. Consistent with previous findings, European Canadians showed superior memory for own-group faces; however, as expected, first-generation East Asian Canadians did not. In Study 2, using university affiliation as the experimentally manipulated social group, European Canadians again showed superior memory for own-group faces, whereas first-generation East Asian Canadians did not. The results are consistent with current theorizing and suggest that the effect of mere social categorization on face recognition is moderated by culture.