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Towards a better, browner future |
Despite the economic progress among blacks in Queens, income gaps still endure within the borough’s black community, where immigrants, mostly from the Caribbean, are generally doing better than American-born blacks.
An earlier Malcom Gladwell article looked into some of these disparaties and observed –
…The implication of West Indian success is that racism does not really exist at all–at least, not in the form that we have assumed it does. The implication is that the key factor in understanding racial prejudice is not the behavior and attitudes of whites but the behavior and attitudes of blacks–not white discrimination but black culture. It implies that when the conservatives in Congress say the responsibility for ending urban poverty lies not with collective action but with the poor themselves they are right.
And, as Alex at Marginal Revolution notes, Gladwell tries hard (and somewhat unsuccessfully) to argue against the most obvious implication – put simply that Culture rather than Race is the primary determinant of success.
So what’s the Desi angle here?
… the Model Minority story is perpetrated by the Man to divide, conquer, and reinforce his hierarchy of powerWell, one of the ongoing, underlying debates at Sepia Mutiny is whether the Model Minority story is perpetrated by the Man to divide, conquer, and reinforce his hierarchy of power (see here, for ex.). For me, it’s tough for me to square that argument when many of the same folks who accuse the Man of crudely ignoring the diffs between Muslims, Bengalis, Sikhs, Afghanis, Hindus, etc. now suddenly accuse him of being able to distinguish a West Indian from an African American on something other than credit scores come loan-time.
Now given SM’s leftward drift of late, my right of center position probably comes across as flaming right. BUT, I’m still forced to look at results like the West Indian case above and argue that culture, rather than race drives these results. It’s pretty darn hard to construct a better experimental test case (although I’m a big fan of this recent one). Consequently, I’m skeptical about dispelling the Model Minority argument simply because opponents contend its supporters have a nefarious motive. The world of motives and intentions might make for great narrative drama (Arnold Kling once noted that this is the great, albeit ultimately detrimental, advantage of “type M” rather than “type C” arguments). But when rubber meets the road, the argument has a tough time holding up empirically especially relative to the clear data above.
What brings this entire debate so precariously close to the third rail, is the way folks – occasionally on both sides – conflate Race and Culture. This destroys a much needed precision in the conversation (if you want an example of this, just give the comment threads here a few minutes before some turd destroys precision with a blanket “uncle Tom” comment or the like).
When “conservatives” make Model Minority type arguments, it hits leftist 3rd rails on several levels. There is a leftist article of faith that all cultures are equal (except, only half jokingly, American redneck culture which must lose all such comparisons and is responsible for all the ills of the world). Making an argument about cultures having unequal outcomes sounds suspiciously close to arguing that races aren’t equal – BUT IT IS NOT. Or, if Western culture happens to come out on top in some such comparison, it reeks to lefty ears of neocolonialism. Or that Racism never did or still doesn’t exist – IT DID and DOES. But test cases like the West Indian case above give us valuable insights and hope for a world where culture and race are less inextricably linked and where dialog can be more constructive. What are the tactical things they are doing differently from their racial cousins? In this case, Thomas Sowell & Gladwell do note one example –
When the first wave of Caribbean immigrants came to New York and Boston, in the early nineteen-hundreds, other blacks dubbed them Jewmaicans, in derisive reference to the emphasis they placed on hard work and education.
For the Left, the Model Minority argument also attacks a core contention that unequal political power is the source of (and thus answer to) unequal economic outcomes and a host of other issues. What are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to do when West Indian’s aren’t Black Enough to be saved by amalgamating political power underneath them?
Opponents also conflate race and culture in a different way when they argue, for ex., that the Myth must be false because Indian cabbies clearly don’t make as much $$$ as Indian doctors. Perhaps the Indian doctor lives in a culture (albeit narrowly defined) which is different from the cabby’s and, for that matter, a good % of India? Afterall, we certainly know of household-to-household “cultural” differences with regard to education, ambition, etc. even within our extended families. And perhaps Indian culture as a whole is going through a cultural transformation which is why this generation has a considerably different economic opportunity vs. their forefathers?
Awesome post, vinod. Everyone take up positions and load up paintball guns.
Let’s forget leftism and rightism for a moment. The term “model minority” fails to make sense to me. Are African-Americans supposed to imitate Indians? Are Latinos supposed to make decisions that will make them more like West Indian immigrants? You’re a minority, well here’s a good model, get yer model right here. It’s about as helpful as mothers sitting around saying, “Beta, why can’t you be like Atul Gawande?” Because, damnit, I’m not him, and I have to do my thing my own way.
The term “model minority” is unhelpful because it is prescriptive, because it fails to see that groups have unique histories that call for unique solutions. None can be a model for any other, and any group that seriously takes itself as a “model minority” arrogates itself.
It doesn’t mean groups can’t learn from each other. That’s the point. From each other. Indian-Americans seriously need to ask themselves what they can learn from some not-so-model minorities.
Setting up a hierarchy of value is to take a very naive view of history indeed. Since when is home ownership the beginning and end of the human dilemma? Americans of all income levels are in existential despair, and yet the number crunchers keep producing figures to assure us that we are the greatest society that ever lived.
Nice to see you posting again, Vinod. Does your definition of “culture” include what might be called “class”?
Setting up a hierarchy of value is to take a very naive view of history indeed. Since when is home ownership the beginning and end of the human dilemma? Americans of all income levels are in existential despair, and yet the number crunchers keep producing figures to assure us that we are the greatest society that ever lived.
k, you don’t llike numerical comparisons like home ownership, etc.? well, what do you have in its stead? it certainly isn’t always correlated with politics in regards to who uses numbers. taz & i both appeal to numbers, but we don’t agree on much politically.
‘Now given SMÂ’s leftward drift of late, my right of center position probably comes across as flaming right’
Actually it should read – my moderate position comes across as flaming right!!
Excellent post. My question is along the same lines as Nina P. How are you defining the word, “culture?” The last paragraph seems to indicate that you make very fine distinctions when it comes to culture (cabbies v. docs, household to household). But, isn’t this different from the broad cultural distinctions that are the focus of the article (African American v. West Indian)?
What’s up with all this unnecessary leftist/rightist stuff. It seems very defensive to me. This post and the comments that follow would be a lot more constructive without ad hominem attacks built in. There are social liberals, economic liberals, social conservatives, economic conservatives, nationalists, anti-nationalists, etc. all who visit SM. Conflating them all into a monolithic leftist/rightist just serves to derail this conversation before it even gets started. Note jilted_manhood’s useless comment above as an example of what I mean.
It seems very defensive to me.
minorities can get defensive 🙂
Sriram and Nina P, if I may chime in for my fellow libertarian friend, the issue IS only about culture and not class. Class is defined in terms of privilege. Culture, on the other hand, is about values. True, the two are often interlinked, but it is examples like this, where the control is culture only, while all other socio-economic factors being more or less equal (ceterus paribus as economists are fond of saying), that demonstrate the strong correlation of culture with success as a model minority. Note that it is perhaps to early in the discussion to jump to conclusions about causality. I need to read the Gladwell article more closely.
I must reveal my total ignorance on this topic by asking a very basic question. Isn’t the fact that culture matters in the success of a minority kind of obvious? I’m not convinced that race doesn’t matter at all, but to me it just intuitively makes sense that all things being equal, the population with the stronger cultural value system will be more successful. Where is the actual debate here?
There is a strong feeling in the black community that the prevalant urban culture today is what defines us as a people. Many feel that attacking that culture is an attack on who they are and that they shouldn’t have to change that. Many people feel that it isn’t their culture but the government, institutionalized racism, and other racial biases that is keeping them poor. I can elaborate if you need/want.
Okay libertarian guys. You say culture matters. That begs the question: What cultural traits?
Also, there are some people who believe black people are inherently unable to perform at or above the level of their peers of other races…
the population with the stronger cultural value system will be more successful.
you need to define the elements here. i.e., what are ‘cultural value system'(s) and what is ‘successful.’
Vinod, good post and great topic for discussion.
I do not think your argument covers all the pertinent issues, though. When we refer to Indians as a ‘Model Minority’, we tend to include only the highly educated class: the doctors/engineers and their children. We kind-of ignore the other vast Indian immigrant working-class community – the taxi drivers, motel-owners etc.
The main difference between these two kinds of immigrants is obviously their education levels before they moved to the US. It made all the difference. It is far more difficult for a less-educated immigrant to come to the US and rise up to the levels of the highly educated immigrant.
Similarly, it seems to me that there are two factors which distinguish this Carribbean immigrant community from the rest of the black population in the US:
1) They live in Queens, NY. This is probably one of the most diverse and least racist regions of the US. Racism exists, really and truly and far more strong in other parts of the US than NYC.
2) Like the educated class of Indian immigrants, these immigrants seem to have started out with a college degree from their parent countries. This is a far bigger advantage than you would think. It is indeed extremely difficult for a poor family to get a college education for their kids in the US, especially a good-quality education. In India, we have institutes like IITs which make a quality education very affordable. I don’t know for sure, but I bet that a college degree in the West Indies would cost far less than an equivalent degree in the US of the same quality of education.
I think that in your post, you are simplifying the issue. Some of the problems with the black community are indeed ‘cultural’, but not necessarily. If you can’t afford to send your kids to a good school, they are never going to receive a high-quality education and are always going to be behind, at least for a generation or two.
However, the ‘culture’ that you refer to, I think, is probably about ‘trying’ to get out of the rut. It does look like immigrants ‘try harder’ to rise up the ladder than African-Americans. I am not convinced of this particular ‘cultural trait’ and would like to see more evidence.
I can elaborate if you need/want.
Please do.
When we refer to Indians as a ‘Model Minority’, we tend to include only the highly educated class: the doctors/engineers and their children. We kind-of ignore the other vast Indian immigrant working-class community – the taxi drivers, motel-owners etc.
they aren’t vast according to the statistics (the statistics might undercount them). i’ve referenced the statistics enough times. there are a non-trivial number of working class browns, but they are not modal.
Oneup,
If you frame the debate that way, then at best it has to be a combination of culture and racial bias that keeps a community poor. I don’t see how either side can be intellectually honest and completely discount the role of culture or racial bias. However, I think I’m leaning towards the argument outlined in Vinod’s post in that it seems to me, from a purely intuitive sense, that culture would be the more weighted and influential of the two sets of economic forces.
Modal minority.
1) They live in Queens, NY. This is probably one of the most diverse and least racist regions of the US. Racism exists, really and truly and far more strong in other parts of the US than NYC.
how do you measure the metric of racism? assertion smells a bit circular to me (e.g., blacks do well, so it must be not racist)
. It is indeed extremely difficult for a poor family to get a college education for their kids in the US, especially a good-quality education. In India, we have institutes like IITs which make a quality education very affordable.
1) 25% of americans in their 20s have college educations
2) about 40% of high school graduates start at a 4 year university last i checked
what is the acceptance rate at IITs???
i live in a state with the highest % of kids taking loans at state universities. it is difficult for a “poor family” to get a college education for their kids cuz they don’t have the income to do that. but, the poor kid can get grants and loans. harder than 5 years ago, but really it is far more likely than getting into an IIT.
‘Note jilted_manhood’s useless comment above as an example of what I mean’
He he he!!! Anonymity and playing second fiddle to someone else are both very contrary to Jilted’s nature. Therefore he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have a really grand purpose in mind!
Another useless comment for you ( though not for everyone )
“Being anonymous’ – correction
On culture vs. class – for much of my adulthood I’ve lived, technically, in poverty. I distinctly remember a friend saying I was middle class. They said it didn’t matter how little money I made, I still had middle-class values (which contains the subset faculty-brat values, a more accurate descriptor). Even at my poorest, I shared cultural traits like my style of speaking and writing, my choices in what I spent my little money on, my ideas about art and literature and film, more with “average” people in higher economic brackets than my own. Perhaps culture is more significant than class, but the two are deeply intertwined. Surely I inherited my middle-class, faculty-brat values from my middle-class, university-faculty parents.
In the context of Urbana, IL, my family shared more cultural traits with other faculty families, including non-white immigrants, than most “redneck” (poor white) townie families.
brown ed. and income and occupational stats (indian american actually, but they are 88% of brownz in usa) from 2000 census.
nina p, your points is spot on. i know many people who have ‘downshifted’ even for quality of life issues.
This is news to me. Indians irrespective of whether they are on Wall Street or driving a cab have been succesful mostly because of their work ethic and desire to get ahead in the rat race. And for the most part they stay out of trouble. I always thought that is what the “model” referred to.
The taxi drivers and motel owners may not be educated but they sure have the potential to make a shit load of money and most of their children end up in white collar professions so it does contribute towards being model.
I don’t agree. It isn’t the “good schools” that drives kids but rather the cultural pressures to succeed and I think that is what I get from this post. When I was growing up in Queens in the 80s the desi kids were all going to public schools and public colleges and every single one I grew up with is successful today. Our parents couldn’t afford prep schools or Columbia/NYU even though a vast majority of us easily got in but that sure as hell did not prevent them from giving the kids the kind of foundation that is necessary to succeed. And many of these parents owned grocery stores or motels or drove cabs.
There was a program on NPR the other day, it was a program about kids and teaching them money management and the guest was saying “Kids today have it easy, they don’t have the kind of hunger that is necessary to succeed.”
Also I disagree with the above. I’ve lived here for 20 years and while diversity is strong here I am not convinced people are tolerant of others without bias. The enclaves of cultures that exist in Queens don’t cross boundries for the most part. The Indians and Hispanics live side by side in Elmhurst for example but do not mingle nor care for each other.
also, many of us must know grad students and postdocs (or had parents who were). their income is ‘working class.’ but their attitude and opportunities are not (e.g., go into consulting and go from 25 K to 100 K in one year).
razib: You are correct about the relative ease of obtaining a college education in the US vs. in India. But I think the relevant question isn’t how many Indians (worldwide) in their 20s have a college education, but how many Indians in America in their 20s have a college education. I suspect that this number is significantly higher than 25% (although you seem to have a much better command of the various figures than I do), and, more importantly, that the percentage of their parents who have a college education is also significantly higher than both the average in the US and the average in India (and that the IIT-graduate sub-population is massively over-represented).
millind, i don’t deny the importance of selection bias. click the link above, and you’ll see that the question for brown americans is “how many have a masters degree in their 20s” 🙂 my only quibble was the implication that it is impossible or very hard for poor folk to get a bachelor’s degree. it isn’t…necessarily (i think it is hard for many urban black kids because they don’t do well in school, in part because of a culture which denigrates academic attainment as ‘acting white’).
since not everyone will click the link, i’m dumping the relevant stuff into thread
Educational Attainment of Indian American, White and Black Population Above Age 25 in the United States, 2000
indian american above 25:
no college at all:
indian american : 23% white american: 46% black american: 58%
yes, selection bias matters, but the children are not regressing to the american mean.
If we want to be really intellectually honest, lets take it to the next level: IQ, culture, race or class CAN keep an individual poor. At least one of them is necessary to keep a person poor, but none of them are sufficient.
The above intellectually honest statement is very clinical but doesnt really serve any purpose. The real questions and answers lie in the area of how these factors weigh in to add up to a persons acheivements. So, if the weights are x,y,z,(1-(x+y+z)): The result is (xIQ)+(yculture)+(zrace)+ ((1-(x+y+z)class). As you can see, for someone to be really poor, one or more of these has to be very low.
Note – I am ignoring the fact that x,y,z are probably also dependent functions. But, point still valid.
Now, it gets interesting if we take it to community level. Ignore IQ because (x*IQ) variation will be trivial across communities. The very fact that certain races are poorer than others means being in the wrong race is a handicap, but either culture or class can be counterweights. As its is obvious, tweaking out more information from this is difficult because it is many times impossible to seperate three factors – culture/race/class.
So, West Indians provide an unique data set to work with: same race different culture. Now their children will provide a subset of being same race, less of same culture and better class. So, if they are more significantly more successful than their peers of same race and class then culture’s weightage is significant. If they are not then race is a bigger factor – meaning their parents success was defined more by virtue of not being identified with their peers race.
It would be fun if we had more of such unique data from which to tweak out facts instead of looking at information from our own filters.
But again, numbers are not infallible either: If the weights vary significantly with time then the entire discussion becomes moot. In laymans terms meaning – the less racist we become, the less we can blame on race 🙂
The point of the 1996 Gladwell article was to explcitly compare Canadians and Americans of Jamaican origin, and show how one group has fared worse than the other. He does talk about culture — Canadian versus American, and how different attitudes of the host society affected the way immigrants assimilated.
Why aren’t Indians the ‘model minority’ in Canada? (We’ve got lots of working class Desis.) Is it, following the Vinod hypothesis, because Indian-origin Canadians have a different culture? Is it due to the 3rd rail of right-wing politics — class origin? Or because white Canadians see Desis filling the ‘working-class ethnic’ slot?
Or some other reason? An unwritten New Yorker Article awaits its Sepia Gladwell!
because Indian-origin Canadians have a different culture?
sure. you’ve commented on this. indo-canadians are not ‘hindu american engineers.’
Actually, what seems interesting about those numbers is that the second generation Indians [i]are[/i] regressing (albeit slowly), whereas other racial groups, such as Mexicans, are actually progressing. The graph winds up looking skewed like that more because of selection bias than anything that is obviously inherent to Indian culture or Mexican culture. Also, the axes are (imo) misleadingly scaled.
You can be sure of that – the acceptance ratio at IIT’s is roughly 1-2 %. For more popular majors its something like 0.2 – 0.5 %
Actually, what seems interesting about those numbers is that the second generation Indians [i]are[/i] regressing (albeit slowly)
offspring of parents tend to regress to the population mean. mexican americans might be an issue where improved opportunity is at work. indian americans, who are generally from privileged backgrounds, don’t experience this ‘bounce.’
oh, and to be clear, i suspect that the indian american pop. in the USA is currently selection biased strongly toward high IQ, so they won’t regress back to average american (or brown) levels, but something higher. just like truncation selection in animal breeding.
I still feel that this graph isn’t presenting its data in a very useful way. What would be more interesting is looking at the difference between fathers’ and sons’ educational levels. In that case, the “native” data point would be effectively zero, the Mexican data point would be positive and the Indian data point would be negative. There is a regression, it’s just slow and, because it starts from a very high point, isn’t immediately obvious.
The interesting result here isn’t that Indian sons remain educated; it’s that, regardless of being well educated, they are still less educated than their fathers. From this data (which suggests that “natives” retain educational levels better than Indians), and working from a base hypothesis that education levels should be maintained across generations, doesn’t it seem fair to conclude that “native” culture is actually better at promoting education?
razib: I think I can agree with that. But because that bias has nothing whatsoever to do with culture (and everything to do with selection bias), we can’t use this data to draw conclusions about culture, can we?
I’d argue that instead, in this particular case, the “native” culture had FAR higher returns for higher ed than their US offspring. In the US, you can become a silicon valley kajillionaire with a bachelor’s degree in Comp Sci from Joe U. From India, back in the day, you could barely get to Silicon Valley without a bachelor’s from IIT and a Masters / PhD from the US.
The interesting result here isn’t that Indian sons remain educated; it’s that, regardless of being well educated, they are still less educated than their fathers
well, honestly, not really. if offspring always tend to regress somewhat back to the population mean when you select far from the mean, because only a % of attributes are heritable (genetic or cultural).
But because that bias has nothing whatsoever to do with culture (and everything to do with selection bias), we can’t use this data to draw conclusions about culture, can we
depends. i think in the case of brownz selection bias is most of the story for their success.
p.s. to be clear, it isin’t ‘interesting’ that sons are less educated, on average, than fathers. it is what you except if you sample a group far deviated from their population norm. there are many things that allow a person to be educated, but they can pass only a % of those things on to their children, so the other variables that are uncontrolled tend to be not as favorable.
Yeah, that makes sense, and I withdraw my point related to that. But I still don’t see how you can draw the opposite conclusion (that there isn’t a regression back to the mean) from the data. It seems as if we would have to wait one or two more generations to make that claim…
But I still don’t see how you can draw the opposite conclusion (that there isn’t a regression back to the mean) from the data.
i looks like there is a regression. count the numbers of years for education.
and just to be clear, if a system like this regression happens usually for one generation. it isn’t a progressive regression to the mean generation by generation until there is a ‘set point’ you reach.
e.g., assume a trait is 50% genetic in that half of the variation is due to genetic variation. the other half is random and uncorrelated with the genetic variation.
so,
parental population mean: 100 selected parental population mean: 150 selected population offspring mean: 125
but, the third generation wouldn’t have a mean of 112.5, they’d be 125 as well, because the regression is done.
The deck is stacked. desis succeed in the us because of a solid network with not much spread but tremendous depth. here it’s spread thin and the few areas of concentration are blue-collar.
no.
to some extent. ben mulroney makes $300K a year and can probably win a party seat anytime he decides to run. it has little to do with race. the masses dont get to really break into the system. the deck is stacked in favor of the monied classes. the irvings own new brunswick and want to keep it that way. ted rogers owns 90% plus of rogers commn and it’s not likely to change. yea. a home is still accessible to most, but once most guys get a $400K mortgage and have jobs that pay barely enough to make ends meet, the rest is taken care of by the govt – so there’s no incentive to take big risks. the key is to stay out of that comfort-zone and most new immigrants seek the obvious – the car, the house, the cottage – and then are indentured for life.
i walked in an office once and the secretary directed me to the plants that needed to be watered. another time i went to a tax consultant and he assumed i was a trucker. not offended. these are hardly the folks i’m going up against. 🙂
I vote for Sriram‘s anaylsis of Oneup‘s synopsis: “it has to be a combination of culture and racial bias that keeps a community poor.”
AGREED. Unfortunately, most black Americans descended from slaves suffer from cultural vacuousness. Only in the past few decades have the links between West African and black American culture been reestablished. Until those connections were made, the exploitive practices of the majority rule, whether in jest or legislation, served to fill that void with innumerable negative images, stereotypes and values—a culture of despair—with little else to counteract it [except liberation concepts from Christianity]. Similarly, now that their poverty is no longer a legislated mandate, are dalits poor because they are lazy or poor because they do not know how to live any other way?
As much as I’d love to entertain a competition in which model immigrants slug it out against one another to see who’s got the highest net worth and number of ivy leaguers in their midst, that is one competition that I and millions of others belonging to non-voluntary minority groups—African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans descended from native Texans, New Mexicans, Californians—will have to sit out.
And daughters be damned >:-|
Selection bias is most of the story for the success of IIT as well.
Selection bias is most of the story for the success of IIT as well
uh, yeah. good students = guarantee of a good skool.
Just a tip Vinod. Stop being so defensive or protaganistic about political leanings and you’ll find that the comment thread centers more quickly on reasonable analysis. The qualifiers and claims don’t serve any purpose other than to politicize issues- and we need less politicization and more analysis.