Not content to assert that “Tiger Moms”  are the bestest, meanest, and most self-sacrificing of mother’s (and ignoring all the subsequently reported factual evidence that refutes her claim), Chua and her hubby are back to tell us that some peoples are just frankly superior.  The very special people that made their list are:

    Jewish
    Indian
    Chinese
    Iranian
    Lebanese-Americans
    Nigerians
    Cuban exiles
    Mormons

If only Chua’s daughters would marry Indian, Iranian, Lebanese, or Nigerian immigrants (the Cuban exiles are much too old for these girls) and convert to Mormonism, Chua could have not just superior but exceptional descendants.

While completely anecdotal (much like Chua’s data), my first hand business encounters with people from two of those groups did reveal an exceptional component.  Exceptionally dishonest.  

Other than Cuban exiles, I’ve known and mostly liked a number of people from each of those groups.  And yet never noticed that they were more successful and/or accomplished and had superior children than those from any other similar socio-economic group.

The real story here — the less controversial one, the more interesting and possibly instructive one — is that historically, immigrant groups tend to experience upward mobility in America until the third generation, and then, for reasons unknown, tend to level off.

Not a mystery at all.  The rigid class and economic structure of the US and most countries leaves few gaps for upward mobility.  The immigrants and/or their children that succeed far enough to get the third generation into a growing family enterprise or business, law, or medical school is the exception and not the rule.  Not much upward mobility from the third generation on regardless of the immigrant’s and/or first generation’s success or failure moving up the socio-economic ladder.

Chua and hubby could have titled their book, “The Superiority of Republicans that Graduate from
College.”  Still begs the question of how the “superior” Mitt could lose to the “inferior” Barack, but perhaps Chua like Mitt still doesn’t believe that Mitt didn’t win.                  

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