This narrative where the second generation immigrants ascend economically is not actually true. For certain ethnic groups it may have been true at one time, but the data actually show that Hispanics descend economically after the first generation, for one example.
"Throughout this book, our statistical models have shown that the low education levels of Mexican Americans have impeded most other types of assimilation, thus reinforcing a range of ethnic boundaries between them and white Americans."
As is well known, American-born Mexicans average more years of education than do their Mexican-born immigrant ancestors. Unfortunately, as Telles and Ortiz report, the third and fourth generations of Mexican Americans do not continue to close the gap relative to non-Hispanic whites:
"In education, which best determines life chances in the United States, assimilation is interrupted by the second generation and stagnates thereafter."
The fourth generation (whose grandparents were born in America) was particularly unaccomplished:
"Sadly and directly in contradistinction to assimilation theory, the fourth generation differs the most from whites, with a college completion rate of only 6 percent [compared to 35 percent for whites of that era]."
The fourth generation Baby Boomers averaged 0.7 years less schooling than the second and third generation Mexican Americans born in the same era.
Telles and Ortiz found:
"...the educational progress of Mexican Americans does not improve over the generations. At best, given the statistical margin of error, our data show no improvement in education over the generations-since-immigration and in some cases even suggest a decline."
This hardly seems to justify your sweeping assertions above, and the review (by Steve Sailer, who I'm afraid I do not consider an objective commentator) seems to suggest that the fault lies entirely with the population in question, ignoring the book authors' own conclusion that institutional discrimination is a major limiting factor in Mexican-American economic development.
Sailer writes: Their book is a monument to disinterested, objective social science. but seems uninterested in reporting the context in which these trends take place, preferring an interpretation of racial degeneracy.
The publisher's description and one other review present a considerably more nuanced picture than the one you chose to quote (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871548488/ref=cm_rdp_produ...) I do not think a selective book review from a tinfoil-hat-wearing race baiter makes the cut.
You quoted and linked to the review rather than original source material, and as such you own the selectivity and bias too. The quoted sections do not, in any case, validate your original argument, but only offer partial support for one of your assertions.
