When this conversation comes up I am reminded of this picture:
[1]: https://reshmasanthosh91.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/picture...
As an immigrant to the US, your family likely had some level of success in order to afford to be able to come here. It is not easy to immigrate to the US. After all the people who uproot their lives are the brave ones who are willing to put in the work. This success was aided from a mentality that was ingrained over multiple generations.
I have noticed this mentality with multiple immigrants from various countries. What you may not have internalized is the context in which all these people have grown up in the US.
You need to suspend your biases for a moment: Imagine you are born in the inner city, your parents may not even be together(divorced or missing) during your formative years and money is always a struggle.
Now add in the local community is super rough and there may be a local culture of discouragement in excelling(ie, you are targeted by others if you stick out and try to escape your circumstances).
Now include an overpopulated school system that may or may not be extremely underfunded.
Finally sprinkle on the chance that if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you could end up in jail due to circumstance beyond your control(you are around a robbery/killing despite not participating in it) or worse accidentally shot by a cop.
If you end up in jail, you are finished for life as this system is extremely harsh on people who enter the system. It is extremely difficult to escape the system once you enter. You may be hosed for generations.
Now you may ask, how did the family end up in that spot to begin with? Well it could go all the way back to slavery. The White slaveowners may have lost their slaves but they profited from the wealth created by the slaves in the form of infrastructure or equity. That wealth does not disappear and is passed down from generation to generation.
Now combine this with more modern practices like Redlining which served to invest in White America after WW2 while purposely excluding everyone else. Again white families building up additional wealth over generations while minorities are locked out. Is it any surprise we are in the current situation?
On another note: A lot of modern immigrants have tech to thank for their miracle in life. Here is an industry which the local population is not massively adept in and pays way above average salaries. It is a once in a generation opportunity for masses of immigrants to cut the line and catch up to white America that has generations of equity. In some cases, immigrants are blowing past white America (since rural America is flatlining). I hate the fact that many immigrants are ignorant of this reality. It will lead to people worse than Trump and sometimes it terrifies me that it will blow up in the immigrants faces when the incumbent citizenry has had enough and they push back.