The key insight of the critique:

The authors never define "success," but for them it seems to hover somewhere in the nexus of money, fame, and power. But that isn't everyone's definition. 

These are of course what the media presents as the definition of American success but people buy into them in varying degrees depending on their personal social groups. For immigrants largely torn away from their former cultures, popular media culture definitions are probably the easiest to assimilate.

While reading this I remembered a book from the late nineties: 

The Millionaire Next Door : Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D. 

Most of the truly wealthy in the United States don’t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue. They live next door.

 

America’s wealthy seldom get that way through an inheritance or an advanced degree. They bargain-shop for used cars, raise children who don’t realize how rich their families are, and reject a lifestyle of flashy exhibitionism and competitive spending. In fact, the glamorous people many of us think of as “rich” are actually a tiny minority of America’s truly wealthy citizens—and behave quite differently than the majority.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Formerly a professor of marketing at Georgia State University, Dr. Stanley spent approximately 20 years interviewing America’s wealthy, starting in 1973—and focusing on people with a net worth of at least $1 million.

 

His first book, Marketing to the Affluent, was chosen as a Top 10 Outstanding Business Book by the editors of Best of Business Quarterly. He achieved popular acclaim with The Millionaire Next Door—selling over 2 million copies. In total, Dr. Stanley’s books have spent over 170 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list.

 

Also wanted to point out the great gif accompanying the article.

Percentage of foreign born population by state (Imgur)

Notice how little the states south of New York change between 1850 and 2000.

Also, note how uniform the states are in 1960 and 1970.

They are pretty superficial these two, I have to say I kind of pity their children, because these parents seem to lack the most basic form of humanity, empathy for others. It's weird, they seem to have taken the remnant of the turn of the century Social Darwinism and wrapped it into their long held prejudices.