[linguae]

This is exactly correct. There's a wonderful late-1990s documentary on the history of East Palo Alto called "Dreams of a City: Creating East Palo Alto" that describes how the community was formed and ultimately became an incorporated city. Here is a clip that describes the discriminatory housing policies in the Peninsula that led to East Palo Alto becoming predominately black:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RHppw20Zm8

The sad thing is that had the original African-American inhabitants of East Palo Alto been able to buy in Palo Alto instead, they or their descendants would be multi-millionaires today given the tremendous boom in Silicon Valley's housing prices starting in the 1970s. There was only a decade-or-so window between when racial covenants became unenforceable and when Palo Alto's housing prices started booming in the 1970s due to the growth of Silicon Valley where African-Americans could buy in Palo Alto at affordable prices.

Also sad is the story of San Francisco's Western Addition, just south of the Japantown mall. Many African-Americans from the South migrated to San Francisco during WWII for the war effort and also for the war-related job opportunities that were abound in the area. Due to racial covenants, the Western Addition was one of the few places where African-Americans could rent and buy; that area had a lot of vacancies due to the unfortunate internment of Japanese-Americans who populated the area before and after the war. When WWII ended, Japanese-Americans and African-Americans lived side-by-side in the Western Addition. However, in the late 1950s, San Francisco started a massive redevelopment project where many of the old Victorian homes in the area were torn down and were replaced with public housing projects. This is also the time that Geary was widened. Many Japanese-Americans and African-Americans lost their homes during this redevelopment project. These homes would be worth a minimum of a million dollars each today, potentially more, due to their proximity to Downtown and Market Street.

[jelliclesfarm]

Many Asians and other immigrants often come to the United States without any generational wealth and build from scratch.

An example of someone everyone knows is Sundar Pitchai. The only way out of middle class and to go upwards is education. Not by speculative real estate activities.

[jpster]

Yes, when you are a recent immigrant who comes with nothing, the way to go upwards is by education.

The point is that black Americans are not recent immigrants. They have been in this country just as long (if not longer) than white Americans. Therefore, it’s probably better to compare black Americans’ socioeconomic status to white Americans.

“Speculative real estate”? Not in the slightest. Simply the ability to buy a roof over your head and pass it on to your children.