^thesnipa ^redforwinter
I want to put it into perspective with an immigrant I know. He lived near me years ago, he came from Cambodia. He had a college education in engineering, material sciences iirc but it made him a target for the Khmer Rouge. He got out alive, his family ransomed him in exchange for several large bags of rice and he escaped to Minnesota. Where he put himself hard at work running a Chinese buffet. Took on loans that were hard to find, managed everything himself, turned to people like me to chip in and set up his systems when it would cost too much. Sent his daughter to college, sold his business, that was the last I saw him but I knew he was putting money away and doing things the right way, the hard way.
He made less money in decades than some Somali putting up an AI prompt generated sign in a window at a vacant office building and sending invoices to the state.
Most of the whites in Minnesota are not generationally far from their first migrant ancestor, likely a famer laborer, and the sum of their generational white privilege wealth is dwarfed by Somali fraud. I have a few migrant friends who have really gone far chasing the dream without a bunch of bullshit like Somali got.
Have a really good Cambodian lifelong friend. Guy always worked, 2 jobs during highschool, excelled at gym and sports, parents barely spoke English and household was rough. He shook off the weird gang culture in the Hmong community (literally) and joined Marines. Our military blessed to have him, would not want to be deployed opposite him. Married a nurse, has some kids, works a job and recruits for military too, American dream achieved.
Another, from Pakistan, friends since growing up in the migrant trailer park adjacent to Somali housing. Family would always be fixing cars, electronics, bringing cheap tech back from their annual visits to Pakistan. Fast forward to today, guy is the stereotype government engineer American dream success story. From trailer Park to Two HVAC systems.
Of the Somali, only two are on my radar from way back then. They both are some kind of Somali community activists.