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Notes -
A somewhat similar argument was made by John Ogbu
years ago; he made a distinction between voluntary and involuntary
immigrants[edit: he actually referred to minorities, not immigrants], the development of a caste-like status re the latter, and the effects on the culture of each. I don't know, however, how that theory has fared subsequently.Edit: Ogbu's arguments were not just about the US, he tried to explain why, eg, the Buraku do poorly in school in Japan but do well in the United States, or why Koreans do well in school in China and in the United States but do poorly in Japan.
Regardless, the OP errs in glibly equating the experience of African Americans with that of other groups. It was literally illegal to teach slaves to read, which was never the case for other groups, and Jews of course are famously literate on average. Non AfAm groups tended to immigrate to urban areas, whereas AfAms largely were in rural areas until the 20th C, so AfAm culture presumably has rural influences. Asian Americans largely immigrated in the last 60 years, when discrimination was less and opportunites greater. Etc, etc. None of this demonstrates that OP's conclusion is necessarily wrong, only that his argument rests on a dubious premise.
Jew didn't "voluntarily" immigrate from nazi Germany, yet their achievements are greater than many other European ethnic groups that had merely economic reasons to come to the US.
The vast, vast, vast majority of Jews in the United States immigrated long before the Nazis. According to this, the Jewish population of the US was 4.6 to 4.8 million in 1937 (i.e., pre-Kristallnacht), and 4.5 to 5 million in 1950. Moreover, this estimates that total immigration from Germany from 1931 to 1946 was only about 120,000 (50,500 x 16 x 0.15) and from Central and Eastern Europe about half that, while this states that only about 110,000 Jewish refugees were admitted to the US.
I have not read Ogbu in years, so I misspoke. He actually refers to voluntary and involuntary minorities rather than immigrants.
Note also that his work is cross-cultural; he is also interested in why the Buraku do poorly in school in Japan but do well in the United States, or why Koreans do well in school in China and in the United States but do poorly in Japan.
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