The Tiger Mom Superiority Complex

[Robbie3000]

The people who come here are generally more likely to assimilate Western values already, which is part of why they come (or even otherwise, it's hard not to absorb it.) But I don't think it's false that certain Asian communities enforce certain career paths and ways of thinking. It's part of why they succeed, but also a weakness. I know many Indians and Chinese who wanted to do veterinary medicine, human rights law, history, econ, etc, but who were forcibly steered into the usual med school, engineering, or whatever and we're threatened with everything from having to pay for school themselves to being disowned.

And when I was in China, I got a gig teaching a special session at high school and university levels, at a few of the top schools in the country, and I was surprised by how little free thinking there was. Mostly, they just memorize and their career paths are planned out since when they are too young to properly decide. The latter is def true for India, too. I had 2 Indian exchange students as roommates when I was doing my MA, and both told me their career paths were decided in HS and neither wanted to do the track they chose back then when they were too young to really know, but that it was too late to change and they would suffer major obstacles to even getting a basic job if they did.

you said better than i could.

 

[Azam]

The people who come here are generally more likely to assimilate Western values already, which is part of why they come (or even otherwise, it's hard not to absorb it.) But I don't think it's false that certain Asian communities enforce certain career paths and ways of thinking. It's part of why they succeed, but also a weakness. I know many Indians and Chinese who wanted to do veterinary medicine, human rights law, history, econ, etc, but who were forcibly steered into the usual med school, engineering, or whatever and were threatened with everything from having to pay for school themselves to being disowned.

And when I was in China, I got a gig teaching a special session at high school and university levels, at a few of the top schools in the country, and I was surprised by how little free thinking there was. Mostly, they just memorize and their career paths are planned out since when they are too young to properly decide. The latter is def true for India, too. I had 2 Indian exchange students as roommates when I was doing my MA, and both told me their career paths were decided in HS and neither wanted to do the track they chose back then when they were too young to really know, but that it was too late to change and they would suffer major obstacles to even getting a basic job if they did.

All I see is a lot of anecdotal evidence, including your experiences abroad in China( what does this have to do with a discussion of American immigrants?)

There's plenty out there on the number of immigrant entrepreneurs America has produced, including Asians. Even posted a link from an article written today that shows this. Unless you can contradict these numbers, you're reaching conclusions based on stereotypes that do no correspond with the facts.

 

[Insensitive]

I like the not so subtle jabs at African Americans, Hispanics and other "Ethnic Groups".
I guess we're all just a bunch of lazy cancerous growths on America's backside
who're to busy being parasites to contribute meaningfully to the American workforce
and American Culture.

I guess we should all be a bunch of pseudo intellectual sycophants begging for acceptance
while piecing together a half assed generalized narrative for anyone who isn't a successful
lawyer, doctor or engineer.

 

[blackzeus]

If they're so advanced, why are their countries such sh*t (welfare state Israel excluded)? Cream of the crop is cream of the crop. If all the top blacks here went to Nigeria, India, or any of the countries mentioned in OP's post right now, they could pull the same sh*t, about how African Americans are so much more advanced culturally/economically, better educated, bla bla bla. What's funny is how much we're on their minds. They're so successful but they feel the need to take time out of their day to write books about them compared to other minorities. "Whitey, please be my friend, we're better than the negroes" Reminds me of this Persian cat in my uni. Hardcore frat guy, got plenty bishes, good grades. However, he got passed up for every and any leadership position at his frat, and instead the Germanic ones got voted in. I would talk to him from time to time like Still not chairman yet?

 

[Azam]

double post

 

[Azam]

If they're so advanced, why are their countries such sh*t (welfare state Israel excluded)? Cream of the crop is cream of the crop. If all the top blacks here went to Nigeria, India, or any of the countries mentioned in OP's post right now, they could pull the same sh*t, about how African Americans are so much more advanced culturally/economically, better educated, bla bla bla. What's funny is how much we're on their minds. They're so successful but they feel the need to take time out of their day to write books about them compared to other minorities.

Not even sure what these posts are responding to? Did you even read the first post?

Threadstarter posted an article by an Indian-American calling out the theory behind the book and disagreeing with it.

 

[blackzeus]

Not even sure what these posts are responding to? Did you even read the first post?

Threadstarter posted an article by an Indian-American calling out the theory behind the book and disagreeing with it.

Responding to what the post was about, e.g. the content, not the author, which is why I mentioned more than one country. Take it easy @Azam, not here to kill the messenger

 

[theworldismine13]

Do you have sand in your Vagina this morning? The article did not discount culture entirely. Just that it is not the only reason for the success/failure of a group.



You fukking dweeb.

Did you read the article?

yeah i did read it and its clearly going against the notion of american exceptionalism espoused by your statement that america is successful because of mavericks

 

[DonFrancisco]

America's Real Exceptionalism

The pity is that this book, and this entire line of argument, is taken seriously--among my relatives, for instance--when all the scholars I've consulted laugh at it. "Every one of the premises underlying the theory of the Triple Package is supported by a well-substantiated and relatively uncontroversial body of empirical evidence," the authors assert. "Give me a break," said Foner, who is one of the authorities cited in the endnotes. "There is a large body of literature showing that the most important factor predicting success among the children of immigrants is parents' human capital." That is: skills and education, from family to family and individual to individual.

Which is not to say culture is meaningless--even if "bad culture" is a convenient way to throw blame at struggling groups, as opposed to dealing with the structural causes behind those groups' disparate outcomes. We all have a linguistic, religious, racial, ethnic or national culture that shapes much about us. The cultural values of a group are an important part of the answer to the question of why certain groups seem to do better, at particular times, than others.

But cultural values are never the whole answer--even as we've come to privilege them over all other explanations for success and failure, such as political and economic ones. And culture is rarely either an unambiguously good force or an unambiguously bad one. Thus, Confucian values of education and family fealty certainly are one factor in explaining why Chinese students from low-income backgrounds do better than their peers. But as we've seen, that's not the whole story. Meanwhile, many in China would like to see less conformity in their culture, believing that it inhibits much of the freethinking that powers creativity and innovation in America and that it results in a citizenry that passively tolerates suppression of dissent and censorship of the Internet.

Chua and Rubenfeld make another mistake when they try to set up a hierarchy of good culture vs. bad culture--in which good culture invariably means getting rich. They take their definition of success from that of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.: "the gaining of money and position." Nowhere are cultural traits like kindness, community and public service or martial valor given any value.

Immigrants, claim Chua and Rubenfeld, are wary of "an excessively permissive American culture"--the bogeyman that haunts the dreams of so many who see the U.S. as losing the vigor of a former age. But isn't that permissiveness exactly what makes America work: this messy mix, this barbaric yawp, this redneck rondeau, this rude commingling? Isn't that what permeates its films, movies, books? And isn't that the principal product it can still export? It is American culture's permissiveness, its new world energy, that still attracts the masses to the "golden door."

As it did with my father, who in college in 1950s Calcutta was first exposed to the great rock-'n'-yell of Chuck Berry and Elvis--music the Jesuit deans of St. Xavier's tried to ban because they couldn't stand to see students gyrating their pelvises. My father had never heard such an awesome caterwaul before, and--along with America's decadent movies and books--it seeded the young man's desire to go live there someday.

It's not conformity that makes this country great; it's an individual striking out against the expectations of his culture, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg dropping out of Harvard, Miles Davis coming out of heroin addiction to produce 'Round About Midnight, the 14-year-old Billie Holiday turning the pain of her childhood into the bluest beauty, Sylvia Plath taking on death with pills and poetry, William S. Burroughs writing from the bowels of his addiction in Naked Lunch; it's Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Cheever and Carver drinking and writing, writing and drinking through their demons. Imagine what American culture would be if American artists had kept a tight check on their impulses.

When people dream of moving to America, it's not just so that they can be prudent, studious, restrained. My uncle Vipinmama would tell me a story about his parents, my grandparents, who had emigrated from Ahmedabad in India to Nairobi in the 1920s. All their lives, they denied themselves luxuries in the new country in order to store them for their retirement. They had rented a room in Ahmedabad, which they filled with refrigerators, washing machines, steel cupboards, juicers--all the goods and furnishings of life they abstained from in Nairobi. When they retired they were going to buy a house in Ahmedabad and stock it with their hoarded treasure.

As the room in Ahmedabad bulged with the goods sent from Africa, the ranks of appliances waiting to be turned on one distant day, their lives in Nairobi continued in great simplicity and thrift. One day in her 50s, my grandmother had a heart attack and died--she "went off," as the Gujaratis say. My grandfather left Nairobi then and went to Ahmedabad and bought a house. But he could not bear to live in their dream without the one who was to share it. So within a month, he sold both the house and all the goods they had so patiently saved up, without ever having used them, and left for London.

This had a powerful influence on Vipinmama, and he lived every day of his life in the pursuit of happiness. Every good bartender in Bombay, New York and Antwerp knew him. He played the guitar. He played cricket for his college. He went on vacation, even when it wasn't good for his business. He too went off, following a heart attack at 34 from congenital heart disease--but it was not after a life postponed. Whatever he purchased, he brought home and turned on immediately. If it was a stereo, he danced to its music; if it was a VCR, he invited all his friends over to watch movies that very evening. You might think my grandfather would have wanted my uncle to be more prudent, more restrained. But in fact, my grandfather was very proud of his son--prouder than any of the fabled Indians in the email he sent around--because his life was not spent deferring happiness, waiting for power.

Mehta is the author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found and teaches at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University

I can attest to this from first hand experience. South Americans especially from Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia have a far bigger gross income, high rates of children in universities, and less teen pregnancies opposed to Mexicans and Salvadoreans. This is because the distance, borders, and the strict U.S. border laws create natural filters for only the riches and brightest to come to America. Of course the flip side is that many of those riches and brightest often face a downgrade when they come to America while kids get an upgrade in terms of opportunities. Also kids don't feel the pressures of leaving home and losing income to money pits like rent and car notes.

this is always why Mexican cowboys might feud with South Americans and the vice versa

 

[Blackking]

producing high paid, highly skilled workers for American leaders...

 

[Blackking]

I Then look at us, if you only took the top 10 percent of AA we would also be the most successful group.
.

This is a huge understatement. I just met 6 young black millionaire IT execs yesterday in vegas. I see this all the time.

And I say that statement all the time. All of our group is here in the US... good and bad. These groups leave billions of their people at home - bring there most skilled and educated people- then..... CAC, blacks, Asian idiots turn around and compare them to us.

 

[DonFrancisco]

All I see is a lot of anecdotal evidence, including your experiences abroad in China( what does this have to do with a discussion of American immigrants?)

There's plenty out there on the number of immigrant entrepreneurs America has produced, including Asians. Even posted a link from an article written today that shows this. Unless you can contradict these numbers, you're reaching conclusions based on stereotypes that do no correspond with the facts.

Actually I also have the same experience with Chinese and Indian students. I'm in a Masters program and it require critical problem solving, something I noticed most Chinese and Indian students really struggle with. This was due to a lack in English. They do well in finance and other data driven classes though.

 

[Azam]

Actually I also have the same experience with Chinese and Indian students. I'm in a Masters program and it require critical problem solving, something I noticed most Chinese and Indian students really struggle with. This was due to a lack in English. They do well in finance and other data driven classes though.

Holy shyt. You're in grad school and can't distinguish between international students from China/India and Chinese and Indian Americans who were born and grew up in the States? It's definitely not the latter that are struggling with English.

 

[DonFrancisco]

Holy shyt. You're in grad school and can't distinguish between international students from China/India and Chinese and Indian Americans who were born and grew up in the States? It's definitely not the latter that are struggling with English.

Chinese and Indian Americans in the US are Americans, dumb ass. People who are born and raised in China and India with legal citizenship are Chinese and Indians. I wouldn't refer an American of Chinese and Indian heritage by the native country of their parents, that is just straight racism and bigotry. The English language isn't the root cause of my experiences and frustrations with graduate students that are here on work or student visas. Cultural also play another part but just from the student and workers I've met and worked with, I just feel that they don't critically think and innovate as much as Americans. Again I can't bring up evidence to support my comment, if I'm wrong AND you can bring up evidence that is great.

 

[bouncy]

The person who wrote that article and the people who do as it says better learn to shut up about how they feel when it comes to groups who outnumber them. If they dont it will backfire, they will create enemies and shyt can go downhill. You dont go to someones house and talk shyt about them then think nothing will happen to you. Jealousy is a dangerous emotion and when others feel you are flaunting that you are better then them on their land they will try to stop your progress. This is why when blacks were doing good after slavery, whites burned their towns down, they were jealous.

In this era, people will just start hating immigrants, and not support them. I see it happening already since president obama started the amnesty campaign. It is slowly growing, especially towards mexicans, and middle easterners. One thing I give jews and some asians is they know how to not flaunt their well doings in your face, which is why I think the have gotten passes for so long. Other groups just talk down on Americans in some way, and I have a strong feeling it is about to bite them in the ass. The 48 laws of power says you have to know when to be a mystery and not talk all the time. If you dont you will eventually say something that cause people to see you in a different light, and lose respect for you. That article is exactly what those people are doing, fukking it up for other immigrants who dont think with a big head and arent narcissistic

That ego will fukk you up when you let it control your mouth.