Nor is that anything new. Much of the hostility on the West Coast to Asian immigration a century and more ago rested on anger at how much harder Asians were willing to work and how they deferred gratification.

That’s the central point of the influential 1901 Edward Ross article in the Annuals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in which he coined the term ‘race suicide.’ All that has changed is that the emphasis of that hard work has shifted from doing well in farming, small businesses, and real estate to doing well in school. (You can find Ross’s article as Chapter VII of my The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective.)

Keep in mind that cultures can change. I’m almost done adapting a 1879 bestseller to a young adult novel called Lily’s Ride: Saving her Father from the Ku Klux Klan. It contains a first-hand account of conditions in North Carolina just after the Civil War. Much of the initial white hostility to the newly freed slaves was based on envy that some blacks were rapidly moving ahead, getting farms and even horses to ride, as well as providing schools (staffed by women from the North) for their kids.

Some champions of rights for blacks pointed to that and suggested that those blacks would, in time, raise the standards of all blacks. The Democratic party, in the process of shifting from defending slavery to championing white supremacy hated that argument. They wanted to keep blacks dependent and pliable. (Sound familiar?) The Klan was created, in part, to destroy that work and education ethic by going after blacks who were doing too well for some white tastes.

That’s precisely the reaction of many whites on the West Coast to Asian immigration several generations ago and perhaps more covertly today. It’s why I and others suspect there are hidden quotas at many universities to limit the number of Asians accepted into professional programs. That’s nothing new. There were similar quotas on Jews a century ago. Even today’s racial diversity targets are merely a remake of geographic diversity targets used by schools such as Harvard to restrict Jews.

In the long run, perhaps what matters for a group isn’t the percentage of those with a solid work/deferred gratification ethic. That’s mostly learned in the home. It’s how the group as a whole values that ethic. If it respects it, the group will move ahead. If it doesn’t, the group will fall back.

–Michael W. Perry

By power I mean a country’s ability to impose its will on others over a long period of time and to prevent any other country from gaining a strategic advantage that could stop it. America accomplishes this by maintaining relative economic, moral and military superiority over its advisories–the key word being relative. But our generals will tell you it all finally rests on economics and a well-educated population.

America”s power hasn’t even begun to crest. It’s just getting started. You fix the immigration mess we’re in now and it’s clear sailing.

However, I agree that America is a great assimilator, to it’s own advantage.

Alas, poor fighting words, your time is past. :(

Hard to believe a professor of sociology (or of anything) could be so obtuse.

What’s obvious (or should be) about the link between upper-middle-class Asians and achievement is that they place so much more emphasis on their kids doing well, which may not be ‘natural’ but sure as hell is cultural. Just ask any Tiger Mom. Pehaps you mean it’s not ‘innate’ or ‘genetic’?

That is why Sociology’s mantra is “No reals, just feels.”

Thank you for your historical insight into reality, but it has no place here. People like Jennifer Lee, who has a PhD in feels, can’t be bothered with opening a text book, but instead bases all her writings on what she thinks it feels to be Asian.

One very valuable aspect of being hospitable to cultural assimilation is that the host has insight into different approaches to problem solving that can be observed, assessed and adopted. The widely-held views in America of childhood and extended adolescence (to 21 or older) as valued and natural phases of the life cycle can be contrasted to the views of others who believe the early years are primarily about preparation for the future. There’s no right or wrong in either view, only outcomes…