[harpratap]

1. Poverty, especially generational poverty, is extremely difficult to get out of. Studying in a university means you won't be able to help your family financially for 5-8 years. Which can be really difficult for many.

2. No role model. Let's say you can somehow manage those hardships. But how do you know all this effort and education loans will be worth it? There are not many role models for African Americans in STEM so they are afraid to dream big. For Indians it's very easy, our culture (especially the Brahmin upper-middle class culture) has always had plenty of role models.

3. They never really paid the true price of getting out of poverty. Education in India and China is highly state sponsored, so all the quality education you got there was mostly tax paid, which enabled them to immigrate to US in the first place. If you give African Americans the same quality education fully sponsored by the state things will change for them too.

[chii]

So these are true for the current generation of immigrants.

What about the generation of asians [0] that were from the beginning of the 19th century? They broke out of poverty, despite all the same disadvantages.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans#:....

[harpratap]

I don't believe the Indians and Chinese who immigrated back in 1900s ever got rid of poverty. It's only the last few decades of educated immigrants that changed the narrative that Asians are the model minority, it's been a part of US propaganda for decades now - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-r...

I can see the same happen in my ancestry too. The ones who migrated back in 1900s or during the wars never made it big while the educated ones who went there after 50s are doing well.

[selimthegrim]

My great grandfather immigrated to USA in 1920s from Kapurthala in Punjab. Most of his descendants work as nurses if they went beyond high school, few went to college but almost all own property, so I’m not sure what you mean here.

[harpratap]

So they were military/landlords back in Punjab and did the same in US? Where's the American Dream™ upgrade? Btw if you were a Jatt in Punjab you were already upper-middle class but now in US you downgraded to lower-middle class.

I would like to see if a Chamaar from Punjab was able to go to US before 1960s and able to become a land owner.

[selimthegrim]

He was Muslim, not Jat or Rajput as far as I know (and yes I know you can both but he didn’t have any sort of obvious last name like Rathore or whatever) I don’t think he owned any land there. Hence the upgrade. I think he imported itar at one point but mostly ran small tuck shop. I think his cousins might have owned land near Batala but after 47 they lost it and went to PK. He did buy the land he built his house on in Cleveland though.