Maybe. But another factor could be that their expectations for their lives are much lower. I remember reading an article about the “abuse” of workers who work in the food processing industry. A picture shown in that article is telling:
A room full of beds, and electric fan besides each bed (so no AC.) One bed for every worker, most of them look like Hispanic (but not really sure about it.) They may pay very little for their housing cost. They could live relatively much cheaply than most of us. Abusive environment from our point of view. But it seems many of them live like this for decades – very “low maintenance.” This helps their company to increase their profit margin (I.e., low labor cost) and helps lower the cost of our food.
It seems I have seen many non-Hispanic workers in the area I live now who are also “low maintenance” (but not very low) than the average Americans too. For example, 4 or even 5 tenants (some are kids) crammed into a one bedroom apartment – the apartment manager looks the other way even though it likely violates the “rule” because they could be volume buyers – their company (e.g., Tata) rent many of these units for them, I think (they often share cars.) And they look perfectly happy and not stressed – a little bit more stressed when their parents or unlaw visited and stayed with them, it seems.
We have an intern who is a Hispanic (1.5 or 2.5 generation American.) He is 1st year or 2nd year college student. He can only take evening classes for his college education (likely community college.) His father helped him to get a car that looks more expensive than my family’s only car though. (In this sense, we are lower maintenance in our transportation need than a community college student who works part time. LOL.)
BTW, at one time, I asked this intern’s manager (not really my manager, but the two groups occasionally interact with each other) whether some of us spend a little of our time to train this intern sp that he could pick up some skills that may be useful to him in his future or his schooling (seems to be engineering related.) The answer I got: He is not technical. We do not want to waste our time to coach him. Doing so is counter-productive. It is a cold world.