The Triple Package

by Amy Chua

  enrolled full-time in college: Marcela Muñiz, Latinos and Higher Education: Snapshots from the Academic Literature (College Board, 2006), p. 17, http://advocacy.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/latinos-and-highered_snapshots.pdf.

  total revenue of Cuban American businesses: Eckstein, “Cuban Émigrés,” p. 297 (calculated using the unofficial, de facto exchange rate).

  About a third of Miami’s population: U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2011 1-year dataset) (county: Miami-Dade, Florida) (population group codes 001 – total population; 403 – Cuban) (Cubans represent about 900,000 of Miami-Dade County’s 2.6 million residents).

  also dominate Miami politics: Eckstein, The Immigrant Divide, p. 94; Miami-Dade County—Office of the Mayor, http://www.miamidade.gov/mayor/; see also de la Torre, La Lucha for Cuba, p. 19.

  all three Latinos elected in 2012: “Latino Congress Members: 2012 Election Sets a New Record with the Most Latinos Elected to U.S. Senate, House in History,” Huffington Post, Nov. 7, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/latino-congress-members_n_2090311.html.

  Cuban actors: Tom Seymour, “Andy Garcia on Coppola, Corleone and City Island,” Empire, http://www.empireonline.com/interviews/interview.asp?IID=1235; Robert Sullivan, “Sunshine Superwoman,” Vogue, June 2009, p. 97; Cindy Pearlman, “Eva Mendes Relies on What’s Inside to Figure Things Out,” Chicago Sun-Times, Mar. 31, 2013.

  later waves of Cuban immigrants: Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream, pp. 189–92; Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans, pp. 20–1, 33–4, 122; Grenier and Pérez, The Legacy of Exile, pp. 23–27; Emily H. Skop, “Race and Place in the Adaptation of Mariel Exiles,” International Migration Review 35, no. 2 (2001), pp. 449–71.

  mostly white, whereas a substantial fraction: Grenier and Pérez, The Legacy of Exile, pp. 38–9; García, Havana USA, p. xi; Skop, “Race and Place in the Adaptation of Mariel Exiles,” p. 450.

  cold shoulder from the Exiles: Gonzalez-Pando, The Cuban Americans, pp. 68–9; Interview with Jose Pico.

  absent from Miami’s power elite: Eckstein, The Immigrant Divide, pp. 88–9.

  New Cubans . . . other Hispanics: Ibid.; Pew Hispanic Center, Fact Sheet: Cubans in the United States, Aug. 25, 2006, http://pewhispanic.org/files/factsheets/23.pdf.

  the Exiles’ U.S.-born children: Kevin A. Hill and Dario Moreno, “Second-Generation Cubans,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Science 18, no. 2 (1996), pp. 177–8.

  majority of the nonwhite . . . outside Miami: Skop, “Race and Place in the Adaptation of Mariel Exiles,” p. 461.

  3.2 million black immigrants: U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group codes 001 – total population; 004 – Black or African American). As of 2009, approximately one million of America’s black immigrants came from African countries; the principal countries of origin were Nigeria (19 percent), Ethiopia (13 percent), Ghana (10 percent), and Kenya, Somalia, and Liberia (6 percent each). Randy Capps, Kristen McCabe, and Michael Fix, Diverse Streams: African Migration to the United States (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), p. 4. The same year, there were approximately 1.7 million black West Indian immigrants, with Jamaica (36 percent) and Haiti (31 percent) by far the dominant countries of origin. Kevin J.A. Thomas, A Demographic Profile of Black Caribbean Immigrants in the United States (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2012), p. 5.

  41 percent of black Ivy League freshmen: Douglas S. Massey, Margarita Mooney, Kimberly C. Torres, and Camille Z. Charles, “Black Immigrants and Black Natives Attending Selective Colleges and Universities in the United States,” American Journal of Education 113, no. 2 (Feb. 2007), pp. 243, 249, 267. Note that Massey’s study covered only four Ivy League schools (Columbia, Princeton, Penn, and Yale).

  Gates Jr. and Lani Guinier: Sara Rimer and Karen W. Arenson, “Top Colleges Take More Blacks, but Which Ones?,” New York Times, June 24, 2004.

  Yale Law, 18 students: Study commissioned by authors, June 2012, based on personal interviews with members of the Yale Black Law Students Association (on file with authors).

  260,000 Nigerians in the U.S.: U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group code 567 – Nigerian).

  Harvard Business School: Study commissioned by authors, January 2013, based on the Harvard Business School Intranet, the HBS African-American Student Union Facebook group, and personal interviews (on file with authors).

  factor of about ten: Massey found that 27 percent of black freshmen at America’s selective schools in 1999 were of “immigrant origin” (either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants) and that 17 percent of these were Nigerian, meaning that about 4.6 percent of the black students were Nigerian. Massey et al., “Black Immigrants,” pp. 248, 251. At that time, Nigerians represented about .48 percent of America’s black population (roughly 165,000 out of 34,000,000), so their percentage of the black student body was approximately ten times their percentage of the U.S. black population as a whole. U.S. Census, Table PCT001: Total Population (year: 2000) (population group codes 004 – Black or African American; 567 – Nigerian).

  particularly well in medicine: In Harvard Medical School’s class of 2015, there are 13 black medical students (out of 170 overall). Of those 13, reportedly 4 had at least one Nigerian parent. Study commissioned by authors, January 2013 (on file with authors). The AMA counted 34,000 black physicians in the U.S. in 2008. American Medical Association, “Total Physicians by Race/Ethnicity – 2008,” http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/minority-affairs-section/physician-statistics/total-physicians-raceethnicity.page. Of these, around 3,000 to 3,500 appear to be Nigerian, including more than 50 in Charlotte, NC, alone. See Ronald H. Baylor, ed., Multicultural America: An Encyclopedia of the Newest Americans (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011), vol. 1, p. 1610; Mike Stobbe, “Nigerian Physicians’ ‘Phenomenal’ Influx into Charlotte, North Carolina,” Charlotte Observer, Dec. 27, 2004, http://naijanet.com/news/source/2004/dec/27/1000.html.

  “Nigerians dominate” investment banking: Patricia Ngozi Anekwe, Characteristics and Challenges of High Achieving Second-Generation Nigerian Youths in the United States (Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers, 2008), p. 129 (quoting interviewee).

  overrepresented at America’s top law firms: Complete information about the number of black lawyers at America’s top law firms, or their national origins, is not readily available. Using a well-known national ranking of U.S. law firms (the “Vault Law 100”), we examined the five top-ranked firms in the country, all of which are headquartered in New York City, and five of the top-ranking law offices in Washington, DC, as well. Study commissioned by authors, July/August 2013 (on file with authors). The results of our study, based on interviews, firm Web sites, and the NALP Directory of Legal Employers, suggest that, in the aggregate, upwards of 5 percent of the black lawyers (including partners, counsel, and associates, but excluding staff attorneys) at these ten firms are of Nigerian origin, which is an at least sevenfold overrepresentation as compared to Nigerian Americans’ percentage (0.7) of the U.S. black population as a whole.

  West Indian by birth or descent: See Alba and Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream, p. 198; Violet M. Showers Johnson, “What, Then, Is the African American? African and Afro-Caribbean Identities in Black America,” Journal of American Ethnic History 28 (2008), p. 101 n. 26.

  only Jamaica sent: Massey et al., “Black Immigrants,” p. 251.

  Colin Powell: Colin Powell, My American Journey (New York: Ballantine, 2003), pp. 7–8.

  Clifford Alexander: Catherine Reef, African Americans in the Military (New York: Facts on File, 2004), p. 3.

  “business, professional, and political elites”: Alba and Nee,
Remaking the American Mainstream, p. 198.

  among the nation’s poorest: Capps, McCabe, and Fix, Diverse Streams, p. 17; Sam Roberts, “Government Offers Look at Nation’s Immigrants,” New York Times, Feb. 20, 2009 (“Somalis are the youngest and poorest” immigrants in America). According to one researcher, African immigrants as of the late 1990s were doing worse overall than other black immigrants, F. Nii Amoo-Dodoo, “Assimilation Differences Among Africans in America,” Social Forces 76, no. 2 (1997), pp. 527, 528, and another says that Haitians and “black immigrants from Africa do not . . . have stronger outcomes than African Americans.” Suzanne Model, West Indian Immigrants: A Black Success Story? (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008), p. 2. These authors do not, however, break out African subgroups like Nigerians or Ghanaians.

  Nigerian Americans dramatically outperform black Americans: U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table DP03: Selected Economic Characteristics (2010 5-year dataset) (population group codes 004 – Black or African American; 567 – Nigerian).

  and also outperform Americans: U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group codes 001 – total population; 567 – Nigerian). About 21 percent of American households as a whole earn over $100,000 a year, with 4.2 percent earning over $200,000. U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table DP03: Selected Economic Characteristics (2010 5-year dataset).

  includes a significant number of new arrivals: Over 25 percent of America’s Nigerians entered the country in or after 2000. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group code 567 – Nigerian); Dennis D. Cordell and Manuel Garcia y Griego, “The Integration of Nigerian and Mexican Immigrants in Dallas/Fort Worth Texas,” Working Paper, http://iussp2005.princeton.edu/papers/51068, p. 20 (noting contrast between high incomes of Nigerian immigrants overall and low incomes of recent arrivals, and explaining that “many of the Nigerians who have arrived since 2000 . . . are students living on a restricted budget”).

  end up in unskilled jobs: Capps, McCabe, and Fix, Diverse Streams, pp. 16–9; Patrick L. Mason and Algernon Austin, “The Low Wages of Black Immigrants: Wage Penalties for U.S.-Born and Foreign-Born Black Workers,” EPI Briefing Paper No. 298 (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, Feb. 25, 2011).

  “dysfunctional” culture: Dinesh D’Souza, The End of Racism: Principles for a Multicultural Society (New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 24.

  product of racism: See Richard Thompson Ford, Book Review, “Why the Poor Stay Poor,” New York Times, Mar. 6, 2009 (describing these arguments); see also Mary C. Waters, Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 7–8, 13; Ezekiel Umo Ette, Nigerian Immigrants in the United States: Race, Identity, and Acculturation (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2012), pp. 129–30.

  “highest-income, best-educated”: Pew Research Center, The Rise of Asian Americans (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, Apr. 4, 2013) (updated edition), p. 1.

  “Asian American”: Ibid., p. 22.

  several of the poorest: Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, A Community of Contrasts: Asian Americans in the United States: 2011 (2011), pp. 9–10, 34, 36, 38–40, 45 (citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2007–9 American Community Survey, 3-year estimates).

  The six largest U.S. Asian groups: Pew Research Center, The Rise of Asian Americans, pp. 2, 7, 57; Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, A Community of Contrasts, pp. 9–10.

  twenty-three of the fifty top prizewinners: Society for Science and the Public, “Science Talent Search Through the Years,” http://student.societyforscience.org/science-talent-search-through-years.

  “Super Bowl of science”: Chris Higgins, “The Super Bowl of Science,” mental_floss, last updated Mar. 26, 2010, http://mentalfloss.com/article/24306/super-bowl-science.

  The résumés of these Intel winners: Society for Science and the Public, Intel Science Talent Search 2012 Finalists, http://apps.societyforscience.org/sts/71sts/finalists.asp (bios for Amy Chyao, Jack Li, and Anirudh Prabhu).

  “synthesized a nanoparticle”: Kenneth Chang, “Nanotechnology Gets Star Turn at Speech,” New York Times, Jan. 25, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/science/26light.html.

  30–50 percent of the student bodies: Grace Wang, “Interlopers in the Realm of High Culture: ‘Music Moms’ and the Performance of Asian and Asian American Identities,” American Quarterly 61, no. 4 (2009), p. 882.

  Tchaikovsky Competition: E-mail from Ivan Scherbak, International Projects Director for the Association of Tchaikovsky Competition Stars, Aug. 6, 2013 (confirming that Jennifer Koh [1992], Emily Shie [1992], Sirena Huang [2009], and Noah Lee [2012] are the only Americans to have won the International Tchaikovsky Youth Competition) (on file with authors).

  spelling bees: Visi R. Tilak, “Why Indian Americans Are Best at Bees,” Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2012, http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/02/why-indian-americans-are-best-at-bees/.

  Presidential Scholars: U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/psp/2012/scholars.pdf and http://www2.ed.gov/programs/psp/2011/scholars.pdf.

  hypersuccessful Asian American teens: The statistics on Asian representation at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford are from those universities’ sites at https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org. The SAT statistics are from the College Board, cited in Scott Jaschik, “SAT Scores Drop Again,” Inside Higher Ed, Sept. 25, 2012, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/25/sat-scores-are-down-and-racial-gaps-remain.

  “anti-Asian admissions bias” . . . CalTech: See Ron Unz, “The Myth of American Meritocracy,” The American Conservative, Nov. 28, 2012.

  Indian Americans . . . Taiwanese Americans: U.S. Census, American Community Survey, Table S0201: Selected Population Profile in the United States (2010 3-year dataset) (population group codes 001 – total population; 013 – Asian Indian; 018 – Taiwanese) (median household income and individual income); ibid., Table DP03: Selected Economic Characteristics (2010 5-year dataset) (population group codes 001 – total population; 013 – Asian Indian) (income level percentages).

  relatively conventional and prestige-oriented: Bandana Purkayastha, Negotiating Ethnicity: Second Generation South Asian Americans Traverse a Transnational World (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), p. 91; Mei Tang, Nadya A. Fouad, and Philip L. Smith, “Asian Americans’ Career Choices: A Path Model to Examine Factors Influencing Their Career Choices,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 54 (1999), pp. 142–5; S. Alvin Leung, David Ivey, and Lisa Suzuki, “Factors Affecting the Career Aspirations of Asian Americans,” Journal of Counseling & Development 72 (March/April 1994), pp. 404, 408; see also Min Zhou, “Assimilation the Asian Way,” in Tamar Jacoby, ed., Reinventing the Melting Pot: The New Immigrants and What It Means to Be American (New York: Basic Books, 2003), pp. 139, 140–2.

  “respectable,” and “impressive”: See Purkayastha, Negotiating Ethnicity, p. 91; Yuki Okubo et al. “The Career Decision-Making Process of Chinese American Youth.” Journal of Counseling & Development 85, no. 4 (2007), pp. 440–1; Pei-Wen Winnie Ma and Christine J. Yeh, “Factors Influencing the Career Decision Status of Chinese American Youths,” The Career Development Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2005), pp. 337, 338; Philip Guo, “Understanding and Dealing with Overbearing Asian Parents,” December 2009, http://www.pgbovine.net/understanding-asian-parents.htm; see also Min Zhou, “Negotiating Culture and Ethnicity: Intergenerational Relations in Chinese Immigrant Families,” in Ramaswami Mahalingam, ed., Cultural Psychology of Immigrants (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 2006), pp. 315, 323 (noting that Chinese immigrant parents often have three main goals: “To live in your own house, to be your own boss, and to send your children to the Ivy League”).

&
nbsp; a disproportionate number of Asian Americans: Mitchell J. Chang, Julie J. Park, Monica H. Lin, Oiyan A. Poon, and Don T. Nakanishi, Beyond Myths: The Growth and Diversity of Asian American College Freshman, 1971-2005 (Los Angeles: UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, 2004), pp. 4, 17–20; Tang et al., “Asian Americans’ Career Choices,” pp. 142–3.

  Nobel prizes: The Indian American Nobel laureates are: Har Gobind Khorana (medicine, 1968), Subramanyan Chandrasekhar (physics, 1983), Amartya Sen (economics, 1998), and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (chemistry, 2009). Amartya Sen, an Indian citizen and longtime U.S. resident, won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998. See Surekha Vijh, “Indian Americans Become a Force to Reckon With,” News East West, Oct. 8, 2012, http://newseastwest.com/how-indian-americans-became-a-force-to-reckon-with. The post-1965 Chinese American Nobel laureates are: Samuel Ting (physics, 1976), Yuan Tseh Lee (chemistry, 1986), Steven Chu (physics, 1997), Daniel Chee Tsui, (physics, 1998), Roger Yonchien Tsien (chemistry, 2008), and the British-American Charles Kao (physics, 2009). See China Whisper, “The 10 Ethnic Chinese Nobel Prize Winners,” Mar. 18, 2013, http://www.chinawhisper.com/the-10-ethnic-chinese-nobel-prize-winners.

  Zappos founder Tony Hsieh: Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (New York and Boston: Business Plus, 2010). Hsieh writes that his parents wanted him to attend medical school or get a PhD, but “I always fantasized about making money, because to me, money meant that later on in life I would have the freedom to do whatever I wanted.” Ibid., pp. 9–10. See also “Jerry Yang,” Forbes.com, http://www.forbes.com/profile/jerry-yang/; “Steve Chen,” CrunchBase, http://www.crunchbase.com/person/steve-chen; Derek Andersen, “How the Huang Brothers Bootstrapped Guitar Hero to a Billion Dollar Business,” TechCrunch, Dec. 30, 2012, http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/30/how-the-huang-brothers-bootstrapped-guitar-hero-to-a-billion-dollar-business/; Michael Arrington, “Alfred Lin Has the Midas Touch,” TechCrunch, July 28, 2009, http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/28/alfred-lin-has-the-midas-touch-the-man-with-2-billion-in-acquisitions-under-his-belt/.