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>>What’s interesting to me is plenty of immigrants prove it’s still true.

I've witnessed it. I know a couple of people who's net worth is more than a million dollars by simply working all the time, saving their money and buying their three family home. The more savvy ones even own more than one.

And these are people that knew no English, had an elementary education, worked at jobs that lots of people would not work at.

I guess the point is that you can make it, but you have to be willing to work for it.



>have to be willing to work for it.

And typically, you also have to be willing to live at a lower quality of life and save, which most people born in the west aren't.


Yep, but that "lower quality of life" can be surprisingly good. My father had a friend that was an El Salvadoran immigrant, as a teen in the 80's this guy was an illegal farm worker in California. He got his green card, then citizenship, and through all this (teen to adult, to family man with 5 kids) he lived in a trailer park outside Palm Springs, CA. His wealth building method was super basic: he purchased shipping pallets and re-used to wood to create picture frames and bird houses his kids painted in various themes. These items were then sold in the dozens of little knick-knack shops around Palm Springs / Coachella Valley. Little by little he purchased the entire trailer park his family lived, and when my dad met him his family owned a dozen trailer parks near Palm Springs and their 3rd generation has kids at Ivy League schools. They still live in the same trailer park lot, but it is probably nicer than many walled communities, from the actual friendly community aspect this family cultivates.


I have heard about the immigrant that came here with nothing, and made it big.

I have never met one though.

I sometimes think it's another American folk tale.

I'm not talking 30-40 years ago.

I'm talking big money, not graduating from a professional school money--bacically med school.

It seems in the past just hard work, and maybe different cultural values, could be enough to get ahead here?

(I said nothing racist, so please no sanctimonious lashing.)


Proving it is possible does not mean it is true.

Going from the standard to an extreme outlier does not bode well for the masses.


well it's called the "American Dream" not the "American Entitlement". Dreams are dreams, you can make them come true sometimes and other times it doesn't happen. I think the "American Dream" is more about the possibility and not implying it's inevitable.




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