I grew up in a community that was just coming out of this phase (the combined Israeli and Persian Jewish communities of LA). I think you're interpreting "relations" in a way too close to the "relatives" of the (relatively atomized) White American society.
Informal immigrant aid networks are generally wider than "close friends and relatives" - they extend to distant cousins and friends-of-friends. For example, in this article the relevant quote is “If you are a Patel, lease a hotel” - Patels being a relatively broad caste, and a surname representing about 10% of all Indian-Americans, not a "family" in the American sense.
For a concrete example of how this works in the Middle Eastern Jewish community, and historically in the Ashkenazi immigrant Jewish community:
Instead of "hey uncle, I hear you have $50K lying around, could you loan me some?" it's "hello second cousin once removed, my uncle got me in touch with you - I hear you've got $50K lying around?" You're generally a step or two removed from the direct source of money. The act of the intermediary is a one-time intervention and said interaction is usually closed out with a direct thanks or a gift or both, rather than being an ongoing professional relationship. If the venture doesn't succeed you'll have an awkward relationship with the two-hops-removed acquaintance, and the one-hop-removed intermediary will know about it and be less likely to recommend you to others for credit, but real social consequences that extend to direct friends and relatives are reserved for those who are considered to have acted maliciously or irresponsibly (e.g. if it's clear you've blown the money on hookers and blackjack, you and possibly your children will be ostracized).
Search for "credit" in this article on immigrant enclaves for some examples of communities with these kinds of social structures: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/433f/567bd158d95f0c2611489d... (This also mentions different informal lending structures than the ones that I'm familiar with personally - instances in Korean and Latino communities of "lending circles" i.e. collective lending among peers, rather than from individual community eminences.)