The Triple Package

by Amy Chua

  knew nothing of Jewish learning: Nathan Glazer, “Disaggregating Culture,” in Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 219, 224.

  “I went to Yale much against my father’s wishes”: “Stanley Schachter,” in Gardner Lindzey and William M. Runyan, eds., A History of Psychology in Autobiography (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2007), quoted in Steven Pinker, “The Lessons of the Ashkenazim: Groups and Genes,” The New Republic, June 26, 2006.

  ultra-Orthodox Satmar community: Sam Roberts, “A Village with the Numbers, Not the Image, of the Poorest Place,” New York Times, Apr. 20, 2011.

  “longing to rise”: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, ed. J. P. Mayer (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), vol. 2, part III, chap. 19, p. 627.

  CHAPTER 2: WHO’S SUCCESSFUL IN AMERICA?

  more than three hundred definitions in the literature: John R. Baldwin et al., eds., Redefining Culture: Perspectives Across Disciplines (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), pp. 139–226; see A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (New York: Vintage, 1952).

  Many scholars have defined culture solely in terms of mental states, a view associated with American archeologist Walter Taylor, who wrote, “Culture consists of ideas . . . . [It] is a mental phenomenon . . . not material objects or observable behavior.” W. R. Taylor, A Study of Archeology (American Anthropological Association, 1948), pp. 98–110. This conception, which in fact predated Taylor, see Albert Blumenthal, Culture Consists of Ideas (Marietta, OH: Marietta College Press, 1937), remains highly influential today. See, e.g., Samuel P. Huntington, “Foreword: Cultures Count,” in Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. xv (“we define culture in purely subjective terms as the values, attitudes, beliefs, orientations, and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society”); Dan Sperber, Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), p. 1 (“Culture is made up first and foremost of contagious ideas”).

  The problem with this view is what it leaves out. Food isn’t an idea, attitude, or belief, but most would agree that what people eat (sushi or falafel), how they eat it (hands, fork, chopsticks), and how much they eat are part of their culture. Clothing isn’t a “mental phenomenon” either, but whether a person wears a sari or a tank top can surely be of cultural importance. In short, culture has to include not only what people think, but what they do. See Roy G. D’Andrade, “Cultural Meaning Systems,” in Richard Schweder and Robert Alan LeVine, eds., Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Education (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 88, 90, 96, 115 (criticizing the view that culture consists of “knowledge and symbol,” “knowledge and belief,” or “conceptual structures,” “rather than habit and behavior”).

  Perhaps for this reason, some anthropologists, like Clifford Geertz, have opted for a “thick” definition of culture as “the entire way of life of a society: its values, practices, symbols, institutions, and human relationships.” Huntington, “Foreword,” p. xv. But this approach, as Huntington points out, is too inclusive; everything becomes culture. The United States Congress is certainly an “institution.” Is it culture?

  Sociologist Talcott Parsons classified all human action in terms of four hierarchically arranged “systems”: behavioral or physiological; personality; social; and cultural. The first was to be the realm of biology; the second, psychology; the third (which included institutions), sociology; the fourth, anthropology. See, e.g., Talcott Parsons, On Institutions and Social Evolution, Leon Mayhew, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 157–58; Talcott Parsons, Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory (New York: Free Press, 1977), p. 86. Parsons’s classification may have been useful to assign domains of expertise to different academic disciplines, but in real life psychology, institutions, and culture don’t come in hermetically sealed packages; they constantly intermix and codetermine one another.

  For just this reason, we don’t try to define culture in this book; some things we treat as cultural could just as easily be described as psychological or social. Generally speaking, taking a cue from Orlando Patterson, we include in culture anything—artwork or commodity, behavior or attitude—that expresses a group’s sense of who it is and how its members should live. See Orlando Patterson, “Taking Culture Seriously: A Framework and an Afro-American Illustration,” in Harrison and Huntington, Culture Matters, pp. 202, 208. Culture, on this view, is a collective effort to answer certain fundamental human questions. Parents impart answers to these questions to their children; so do schools; so does television. It’s for this reason that family, education, and TV are so intensely cultural (in addition to everything else they are).

  Of particular importance to this book, cultures orient people in time, urging them for example to venerate the past, live for the moment, or direct themselves to the future. Writers across a wide range of genres have recognized and elaborated on this phenomenon. For example, Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic is one such elaboration; another is Milan Kundera’s novel Slowness; another is organizational anthropologist Geert Hofstede’s concept of “long-term orientation,” said to be empirically testable and to vary from country to country. See Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations (2d ed.) (Thousand Oaks, CA, London, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001), pp. 351–72. These temporal orientations, as we’ll see, can have a powerful impact on individuals’ and groups’ economic outcomes.

  The term “Mormon”: Claudia L. Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), p. xiii; Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), pp. ix, xiv–xv.

  Concentrated in Utah: Neal R. Peirce, The Mountain States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Eight Rocky Mountain States (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), p. 192.

  discriminated against blacks: Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism, pp. 91–3, 97–98; Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), pp. 51–3.

  still a rarity on Wall Street and in Washington: James Crabtree, “The Rise of a New Generation of Mormons,” Financial Times, July 9, 2010; Dan Gilgoff, “With or Without Romney, DC a Surprising Mormon Stronghold,” CNN.com, May 12, 2012, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/12/hfr-with-or-without-romney-d-c-a-surprising-mormon-stronghold.

  apple-pie variety: See Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism, pp. 187–8 (“Mormons do well in finance, business, and law. . . . More Mormons are moving into performance, scholarship, and the arts.”) For a fascinating history of Mormon music, literature, theater, and visual arts, see Terryl L. Givens, People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), chaps. 7–10.

  5 to 6 million Mormons: The LDS Church officially claims about 6 million U.S. members, which would make Mormons about 2 percent of the population. Independent researchers, however, believe the true figure to be lower. See, e.g., Rick Phillips and Ryan T. Cragun, Mormons in the United States 1990–2008: Socio-demographic Trends and Regional Differences (Hartford, CT: Trinity College, 2011), p. 1 (estimating Mormons at 1.4 percent of adult population); The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S. (July 24, 2009) (estimating Mormons at 1.7 percent of adult population and Protestants at 51.3 percent), http://www.pewforum.org/2009/07/24/a-portrait-of-mormons-in-the-us.

  $230 million: Edwin Durgy, “What Mitt Romney Is Really Worth: An Exclusive Analysis of His Latest Finances,” Forbes, June 4, 2012.

  Other leading Mormon politicians include: Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America:
The Power and the Promise (New York: HarperOne, 2007), pp. xiii, xv, 137, 140; Caroline Winter, “God’s MBAs: Why Mormon Missions Produce Leaders,” Business Week, June 9, 2011.

  prominent Mormons include: Jeff Benedict, The Mormon Way of Doing Business: How Nine Western Boys Reached the Top of Corporate America (New York and Boston: Business Plus, 2007); Winter, “God’s MBAs”; Crabtree, “The Rise of a New Generation of Mormons”; Larissa MacFarquhar, “When Giants Fail: What Business Can Learn from Clayton Christensen,” New Yorker, May 12, 2012; “The Mormon Way of Business,” The Economist, May 5, 2012; “The List: Famous Mormons,” Washington Times, Oct. 21, 2011; “Mormons in Business,” Businessweek.com, June 9, 2011.

  just the tip of the iceberg: “Mormons in Business”; Brent Schlender, “Incredible: The Man Who Built Pixar’s Animation Machine,” CNN Money.com, Nov. 15, 2004, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/11/15/8191082; Max B. Knudson, “2 More Utahns Join Forbes’ 400,” Deseret News, October 10, 1990, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/126660/2-MORE-UTAHNS-JOIN-FORBES-400.html?pg=all.

  overrepresented in the CIA: Grace Wyler, “11 Surprising Things You Didn’t Know About Mormons,” Business Insider, June 24, 2011, http://www.businessinsider.com/11-surprising-things-you-didnt-know-about-mormons-2011-6.

  “out of nowhere”: Jon Mooallem, “When Hollywood Wants Good, Clean Fun, It Goes to Mormon Country,” New York Times, May 23, 2013.

  Ken Jennings: Ostling and Ostling, Mormon America, p. 149.

  Mormon senior executives in any Fortune 500 company: Data compiled for authors in May 2012 (on file with authors). For all the companies ever listed on the Fortune 500 since it began in 1955, see CNN Money, “Fortune 500,” http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/1955.

  Goldman Sachs announced the addition: See Winter, “God’s MBAs”; Julie Steinberg, “Goldman Looks West for New Flock,” Fins Finance, Mar. 12, 2012, http://www.fins.com/Finance/Articles/SBB0001424052970204781804577271884170878826/Goldman-Looks-West-for-New-Flock.

  thirty-one of its graduates: Winter, “God’s MBAs.”

  correlation of faith and money: Lisa A. Keister, Faith and Money: How Religion Contributes to Wealth and Poverty (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 181–8.

  somewhat more likely to make: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S, Table: Education and Income.

  Mormon women who describe themselves as housewives: Phillips and Cragun, Mormons in the United States 1990–2008, pp. 5–6.

  “secret” to their success: Benedict, The Mormon Way of Doing Business, pp. 144–6.

  most are relatively poor: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S., Table: A Demographic Portrait of Converts to Mormonism (40 percent of Mormon converts earn less than $30,000 a year, compared to only 21 percent of non-converts).

  Non-convert Mormons: Ibid.; see also Phillips and Cragun, Mormons in the United States 1990–2008, p. 8 (58 percent of Mormons in Utah earn $50,000 or more, compared to 45 percent of the U.S. population as a whole).

  not considered Mormon by: Ostling and Ostling, Mormon America, p. 57.

  “prophet” Rulon Jeffs: Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (New York: Doubleday, 2003), pp. 12–13.

  the church’s highest leadership council: Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism, pp. 31–3, 111–3.

  Church holdings: Ostling and Ostling, Mormon America, pp. 124–6; Winter, “God’s MBAs.”

  Church of England: The Church of England, “Funding the Church of England,” http://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/facts-stats/funding.aspx; William C. Symonds, “The Economic Strain on the Church,” Apr. 15, 2002, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_15/b3778001.htm.

  U.S. Catholic Church: “The U.S. Catholic Church: How It Works,” Business Week, April 14, 2002, http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2002-04-14/table-the-u-dot-s-dot-catholic-church-how-it-works; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Catholic Information Project,” August 2006, http://old.usccb.org/comm/cip.shtml (estimating total parish annual revenues of $7.35 billion); Pew Research Center, “U.S. Catholics: Key Data from Pew Research,” Feb. 25, 2013 (“about 75 million Catholics in the United States”), http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/u-s-catholics-key-data-from-pew-research.

  “no other religion comes close”: Ostling and Ostling, Mormon America, pp. 118, 408; Winter, “God’s MBAs.”

  Goizueta name in a lot of places in Atlanta: See “Distinguished Faculty,” Georgia Tech Office of Hispanic Initiatives, http://www.hispanicoffice.gatech.edu/goizueta-fellowship/ faculty-staff (discussing “The Goizueta Foundation Faculty Chair” and the “Roberto C. Goizueta Chair for Excellence in Chemical Engineering”); “Atlanta Ballet Receives $2 Million Gift from The Goizueta Foundation,” The Atlanta Ballet, Jan. 4, 2012, http://www.atlantaballet.com/press/goizueta-foundation-gift-010412. Since its establishment in 1992, the Goizueta Foundation has given over $370 million to support education, family services, and the arts.

  Roberto Goizueta: David Greising, I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke: The Life and Leadership of Roberto Goizueta (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), pp. xvi–xviii; “Goizueta Remembered for Service to Church,” The Georgia Bulletin, Oct. 23, 1997.

  “Cuban Exiles”: See Miguel Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1998), pp. 20–1, 33–4, 44–6; María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959–1994 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), chap. 1; see generally Richard D. Alba and Victor Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (Cambridge, MA; and London: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 189–92; Guillermo J. Grenier and Lisandro Pérez, The Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States (Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2003), pp. 23–7.

  four major waves of post-Castro Cuban immigration: Grenier and Pérez, The Legacy of Exile, pp. 23–5; see Susan Eva Eckstein, The Immigrant Divide: How Cuban Americans Changed the U.S. and Their Homeland (New Haven, CT, and London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 2-3; U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group code 403 – Cuban).

  middle and upper class: García, Havana USA, p. 15; Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans, p. 33. Specifically, of the so-called Golden Exiles, who arrived in the first wave of immigration to the U.S., about 25 percent had been judges, lawyers, professionals, and semiprofessionals; 12 percent had managerial and executive positions in Cuba; and 31 percent had clerical or sales jobs. Thomas D. Boswell and James R. Curtis, The Cuban-American Experience: Culture, Images, and Perspectives (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1984), pp. 45–6.

  “the psychological impetus”: Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans, p. 47.

  Miami was still largely a resort: García, Havana USA, pp. 5, 86–7.

  more than 1,100 multinational corporations: WorldCity, “The 2009 Who’s Here Multinational Economic Impact Study” (2009), p. 2, http://www.bus.miami.edu/_assets/files/news-media/recent-news/WhosHere09.pdf.

  eleventh-highest gross metropolitan product: The U.S. Conference of Mayors, U.S. Metro Economies: Outlook—Gross Metropolitan Product, and Critical Role of Transportation Infrastructure (2012), appendix Table 1; see also García, Havana USA, pp. 86–7; Grenier and Pérez, The Legacy of Exile, pp. 48–50.

  Alfonso Fanjul: See Patrick Verel, “Fordham Alumnus Recounts Rise to Top of Sugar Industry,” Inside Fordham, Feb. 25, 2013, http://www.fordham.edu/campus_resources/newsroom/inside_fordham/february_25_2013/news/fordham_alumnus_reco_90307.asp; Marci McDonald, “A Sweet Deal for Big Sugar’s Daddies, U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 6, 2001.

  Bacardis: Tom Gjelten, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (New York: Viking, 2008), pp. 194–5,
205–6, 208, 235–6; W. Blake Grey, “Bacardi, and Its Yeast, Await a Return to Cuba,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 6, 2011.

  As of 1961: Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans, p. 21.

  Gedalio Grinberg: Douglas Martin, “G. Grinburg, Watch Baron, Dies at 77,” New York Times, Jan. 6, 2009; “Movado Group, Inc.,” 2013 Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/72573/000119312513126699/d444274d10k.htm#tx444274_3.

  Carlos Gutierrez: Kateri Drexler, “Carlos Gutierrez,” in Icons of Business: An Encyclopedia of Mavericks, Movers, and Shakers (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), vol.1, pp. 203–21.

  Ralph de la Vega . . . “Spam-like meat”: Ralph de la Vega, Obstacles Welcome: How to Turn Adversity into Advantage in Business and Life (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009), pp. 1–3, 10; Robert Reiss, “A Journey from Cuba to Corporate Leadership,” Forbes, April 5, 2010.

  “no idea . . . where to take their families”: García, Havana USA, p. 18.

  Former executives parked cars . . . “I was determined that my children”: Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans, pp. 33–4, 36, 47–8 (quoting an interview with anthropologist Mercedes Sandoval); García, Havana USA, p. 20; see also “Marco Rubio Won’t Be V.P.,” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 26, 2012.

  “Cubans more than most Latin American immigrants”: Susan Eckstein, “Cuban Émigrés and the American Dream,” Political Science and Politics 4, no. 2 (June 2006), p. 297.

  wealthiest Hispanic American: Miguel de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), p. 35.

  managerial and professional positions: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey Reports, The American Community—Hispanics: 2004 (February 2007), p. 16 and fig. 12.