The Triple Package (52 page)
Read The Triple Package Online
Authors: Amy Chua,Jed Rubenfeld
Tags: #History, #Nonfiction, #Retail, #Sociology
West Indian Americans,
41
,
43
,
156
Wharton School,
33
What Makes Sammy Run?
(Schulberg),
140
white supremacy,
72
–73
Wilde, Oscar,
146
Williams, Ted,
21
Winthrop, John,
201
Wire, The,
143
Wittgenstein, Ludwig,
146
Wolfe, Tom,
210
Wong, Freddie,
164
WordPerfect Corporation,
32
work ethic,
26
,
87
,
129
,
137
,
143
,
173
self-esteem movement and,
216
Wu, Jason,
164
Wu, Tim,
103
Yahoo,
48
Yale Law School,
42
Yang, Jerry,
48
Yoruba people,
81
YouTube,
48
Zakaria, Fareed,
49
Zhou, Min,
79
Zucker, Jeff,
54
*
Although rarely mentioned in media reports, the studies said to show the demise of upward mobility in America largely exclude immigrants and their children. Indeed, the Pew Foundation study most often cited as proof of the death of upward mobility in the United States expressly cautions that its
findings do not apply to “immigrant families,” for whom “the American dream is alive and well.”
*
Needless to say, no amount of grit or drive will lift a group to economic success in a society that wholly denies them economic opportunity. Most of America’s Jewish immigrants probably had the Triple Package before they got to this country, but that didn’t do them much good in the
shtetls
of Eastern Europe. As an engine of success, the Triple Package is dependent on institutions rewarding hard work and deferred gratification. An entire nation could have a Triple Package culture yet remain mired in poverty if governed by a kleptocracy. Thus as Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have argued,
institutions rather than culture may best explain many between-country wealth differences. North and South Korea provide an obvious example. (On the other hand, Jared Diamond might be right that
geography ultimately explains why some continents or regions developed wealth-creating institutions before others.) But to explain why,
within
a single country, some groups rise from penury to affluence while facing roughly the same economic system—and often discrimination as well—institutions can’t be the full answer.
*
To say there’s no generally accepted definition of culture would be an understatement. A 2006 compilation found
more than three hundred definitions in the literature. The way we use the term in this book is probably consistent with most of those definitions, although we start with certain baseline premises: that a group’s culture is highly dynamic (not static), capable of changing radically even in a generation; that culture is usually many-sided (not monolithic), weaving together numerous and even conflicting strands; that people can change their cultural conditions (so that a family, for example, can have a distinctive culture shaped by parental decisions); and that there is no principle of one-person-one-culture (meaning that individuals can be and in America usually are defined by more than one culture). For more on how we use “culture” in this book, see the
endnote
.
*
There have been
four major waves of post-Castro Cuban immigration: roughly 200,000 initial exiles between 1959 and 1962 (the so-called Golden Exiles); roughly 260,000 between 1965 and 1973 (when persons from America were permitted to go to Cuba and return with relatives); more than 125,000 by boat in 1980 (the Marielitos, so called because of the port, Mariel, from which they left Cuba); and about 20,000 per year since 1994 (beginning with the “rafter” crisis). Following Professor Susan Eckstein, we will refer to the pre-1980 émigrés as “Cuban Exiles” and those who began emigrating in the 1990s as “New Cubans.” In 2010, the total population of Cuban Americans was approximately 1,760,000.
*
The 2010 Census showed
3.2 million black immigrants in the U.S. out of a total black population of 38.4 million.
*
The six largest U.S. Asian groups are Chinese (approximately 4 million as of 2010), Filipino (3.4 million), Indian (3.2 million), Vietnamese (1.7 million), Korean (1.7 million), and Japanese (1.3 million). Other, less numerous groups include Bangladeshis, Burmese, Cambodians, Hmong, Indonesians, Laotians, Pakistanis, and Thais. Two of these groups—Cambodian and Hmong Americans—have per capita incomes below $12,000, lower than any major racial or ethnic group in the country, with more than a third of their children living below the federal poverty line. Altogether, Asian Americans make up 5–6 percent of the U.S. population.
*
Note that our use of the term “superiority complex” is not the same as Alfred Adler’s.
For Adler, who is often (although almost certainly incorrectly) credited with
coining the term, a “superiority complex” was in every case a kind of self-deceiving defense mechanism masking a more basic “inferiority complex.” In our usage, groups or individuals can be said to have a superiority complex only when they have a genuine, deeply internalized belief in their own exceptionality. For sources, see the
endnote
.
*
Idiomatic for, “I feel like kicking someone’s ass.” “
Alguin
” should be “
alguien
.”
*
This Cuban expression translates literally as “shit-eater” but is roughly equivalent to “idiot,” “asshole,” or “dumb-ass.”
*
A few immigrants from East India settled in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. The
first significant Indian community in the United States was made up of Punjabi Sikhs, mostly men, who came to the West Coast as laborers in the early twentieth century, many of them eventually marrying Mexican women. From 1924 to 1965, Indian immigration was largely barred. The
initial wave of post-1965 Indian immigrants was overwhelmingly an elite, educated, professional cohort;
as of 1975, 93 percent of immigrating Indians were “professional/technical workers” or their immediate family members.
Since 1990, more Indian immigrants have come from nonelite educational backgrounds. Indian Americans today are a predominantly immigrant population; an
astonishing 87 percent of adults are foreign-born. For sources, see the
endnotes
.
*
One recent study was widely reported in the popular media as having shown that
strict parenting is “uncommon” among Chinese Americans and that “supportive” parenting is the norm. The actual study, however, is not inconsistent with the well-established finding that Chinese immigrants tend to impose much more discipline and higher expectations on their children than most American parents. The study’s methodology involved no inquiry into specific child rearing practices such as what the children did after school, what grades were considered acceptable, or how many hours of study or practice were required; nor was there any comparison between Chinese parents and any other parents. Rather, Chinese American parents were asked to rate themselves according to selected phrases such as whether they “act caring,” “listen carefully” to their children, “act supportive,” “insult or swear,” “change the subject whenever the . . . child has something to say,” or “punish . . . with no or little explanation.” Based on answers to these questions (by parents and children), the researchers classified a majority (or near-majority) of the parents as “supportive” relative to the other Chinese parents in the survey. But whether these parents were strict by American standards—imposing greater discipline or requiring more intense work habits—is a question the study did not address. For sources and more discussion, see the
endnote
.
*
For 2000–2010, the overall Asian American suicide rate was 5.6 per 100,000 as compared with 12.3 per 100,000 white Americans. Asian Americans commit suicide at lower rates in every age bracket, but breaking down the data by gender reveals important vulnerabilities. The Asian American suicide rate is lower than the white rate for both men and women, but the gap is considerably narrower for women than for men (8.3 suicides per 100,000 for Asian men, as compared to 20.3 for white men; 3.2 per 100,000 for Asian women, as compared to 5.0 for white women). Among women 15 to 24 years of age, the Asian American suicide rate is very close to the white rate (3.2 per 100,000 for Asians; 3.5 for whites), and among women aged 70 and over, the Asian American rate (6.8) is higher than the white rate (4.1). Overall, however, and in virtually every age/gender bracket, the Asian rate is lower than the white rate (and the national average). For sources and more detail, see the
endnote
.
*
The terms “ward house,” “meetinghouse,” and “church” are often used interchangeably to refer to “the basic building type used by the LDS Church for holding general worship services” and other activities.
*
Widely cited but not universally accepted IQ studies have shown higher scores in Ashkenazi Jews (although not Sephardic Jews), with
a mean ranging from 108 to 115 (as opposed to a
U.S. mean of 100). To explain higher Ashkenazi IQ, the
theory most in the news today holds that centuries of anti-Semitic restrictions in medieval Europe “naturally selected” for Jewish intelligence. Barred from ordinary occupations, Jews could survive only if they were good at commerce, money-lending, or other jobs “that people with an IQ below 100 essentially cannot do.” Wealthier (and thus more intelligent) Jews had more offspring, while some less intelligent Jews converted to survive. Ironically, in one version of this theory, the same genes that produce enhanced Ashkenazi intelligence are responsible for Tay-Sachs and other “Jewish diseases.” At present, these claims remain speculative and hotly debated. “[I]t’s
bad genetics and bad epidemiology,” said a prominent geneticist of the leading paper. A historian was more circumspect: “I’d actually call the study bullshit.” Other commentators have been more receptive. For sources, see the
endnote
.
*
As is now well established, increasing self-esteem does not improve academic performance.
Asian American students have the lowest self-esteem of any U.S. racial group, yet do the best. Overall, American students are among the
world’s leaders in self-esteem; they’re also among the lower-scoring. In a
controlled experiment, students who received self-esteem-boosting messages did
worse
than other students. In
another study, repeatedly praising children for how intelligent they were
lowered
their scores on standardized test questions—and made them lie when asked how many questions they’d gotten right. Moreover, the basic claim that sociopathic behavior is caused by low self-esteem also proved false. Racists and criminals do not “
secretly feel bad about themselves,” researcher Nicholas Emler found.
Serial rapists have “remarkably high levels of self-esteem.” Meanwhile, psychologists report that kids raised on a high-self-esteem diet often suffer
depression and anxiety as adults, along with higher rates of narcissism. For sources, see the
endnote
.