Recently read this book. And I mostly agree with the negative reviews on the Wikipedia page. But here are few of my personal observations.
Just for introduction (from Wikipedia):
As per the book, "Indian Americans are have the highest income of any Census tracked ethnic group" but surprisingly most of the book is about Jews and Chinese with almost zero analysis of Indians. Which makes sense as one of the authors is Chinese and another Jew. So they can take liberties writing about their own culture. Whereas if they write something offensive about another culture, the racio-religious backlash would be too hot to handle. So, this choice seems to be practical but shows considerable lack of courage.
Another reason for devoting little attention to Indians could be that they don't fit the triple package theory. If you ask me the reasons for Indians' success in USA, they would be quite mundane actually.
Just for introduction (from Wikipedia):
The central argument of the book is that the cultural groups that have "starkly outperforming" the rest in America possess three distinct traits. These virtues are the presence of a superiority complex, the simultaneous existence of an inferiority complex, and a marked capacity for impulse control.
As per the book, "Indian Americans are have the highest income of any Census tracked ethnic group" but surprisingly most of the book is about Jews and Chinese with almost zero analysis of Indians. Which makes sense as one of the authors is Chinese and another Jew. So they can take liberties writing about their own culture. Whereas if they write something offensive about another culture, the racio-religious backlash would be too hot to handle. So, this choice seems to be practical but shows considerable lack of courage.
Another reason for devoting little attention to Indians could be that they don't fit the triple package theory. If you ask me the reasons for Indians' success in USA, they would be quite mundane actually.
- India is almost the most populous country in the world. By any laws of probability, there are bound to be more talented/successful Indians than other nationalities.
- As far as I know, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marwari, Bengali and Sindhi communities would make up the 90% of rich Indian Americans. Except for Punjabis and Marwaris all of them come from coastal states. Punjabis and Marwaris have long sat on some of the most important trade routes connecting India with its neighbors. Being a coastal state/trade route state gives you a lot of advantages in terms of the awareness and network effects.
- Bihar/MP/UP and large parts of Rajasthan which are backward are landlocked. Which explains the lack of business opportunities and other opportunities in general.
- The book claims that a lot of Indian Americans have the superiority complex because of their caste. Might be true. But there is a huge Brahmin population in UP and it doesn't have proportionate representation in US due to the reasons mentioned above. So the caste argument is not that strong.
- A lot of successful Indian Americans are IITians. And IITs have always tried to emulate the western universities. IIT Bombay was teaching Fortran in CS-101 for many years only because MIT was doing it too. So when the IITians do land up in USA, they take less time to adjust.
- From what I understand, Gujaratis are the most successful Indians in USA. And they are most successful in India too. So it's just a case of rich getting richer in other countries. No other explanations are needed.
