Quark was just a immigrant who was trying to preserve his way of life

As I get older and my viewings of Deep Space Nine get more sophisticated I relate more and more to Quark. This can fly over your head because its never explicitly said but Quark is obviously a immigrant in DS9. So are his famiy Rom and Nog. As Quark mentioned he's not just some guy cheating people at random, he does it by clearly defined rules. In that sense Quark is similar to Worf in terms of having a code and values they live from their home planets despite being outsiders.

As a immigrant myself I understand Quark's annoyance with Federation and Hu-Mon values. Because if you haven't been a immigrant you don't understand the frustration, if you're from China or Brazil or Saudi Arabia, and emigrate to the West. The assimilation process where your 1.5 or 2.0 generation stop speaking your native language and speak exclusively english and get into these weird trends that seems bizarre to you. Bill Belichick's Croatian immigrant grandparents found American football bizarre. Of course in DS9 we just have to frame it as comedic, like how ridiculous Quark is offended by the Federation being too nice and Hu-Mons drinking root beer!

The DS9 writers always wanted to stack the deck and have Ferengis believe in silly things like women not being able to wear clothes which precludes any genuine sympathy for their values. The thing is though, and I think Armin Sherman in the Delta Flyers Journey to the Wormhole often points out this concept to defend Quark, its cultural relativism. It may look stupid to us, or misogynist or whatever but what right do we have to tell their society to change because its offensive to us? Now in the show the Federation doesn't actively pressure or bully a species into adopting its beliefs but if DS9 was more realistic and interested in the finer details of galactic geopolitics you really don't think the Federation would put sanctions on Ferenginar if they didn't give women the right to vote or wear clothes or go out in public?

Quark is not just heroic in certain episodes like saving his Cardassian former love but he's heroic in that he simply wants to live as his ancestors lived with the same values and code like most honorable people do. He's motivated by that not profits if you pay attention. He's similar to Okonkwo in the novel Things Fall Apart. Because most of us lived or grew up in the West where we're always the ones calling the shots and we're never the ones who have to change because a militarily and technologically superior, alien, civilization demands it via either hard or soft power we don't have the sensitivity to people like Quark.

Now in the show its never presented in those terms, the Federation isnt using soft power to bully other worlds, well I guess that one time where they said the Bajoran caste system would prevent their Federation membership but you just know if Star Trek was a bit more realpolitik we'd have episodes where the Federation is using NGOs to promote Hu-Mon values to Ferenginar causing some massive civil war. This is basically the history of European colonization where you're justified in conquest because you're spreading good and noble values.

Eddington was right.