<p>To start off, many Asian and Jewish immigrants were well off when they arrived here. It’s kind of hard to emigrate without having a lot of money. </p>
<p>That being said, you’re painting with a pretty thick brush. My dad’s Jewish and we’re sure as hell no where close to doing “well” in life lol.</p>
<p>I can’t speak so much for Jewish culture, but Asian culture highly emphasizes education (that’s why you often hear about Asian pressure to get 2400s on SAT, straight As, etc). That pressure to be above average translates into real-world success.</p>
<p>In response to Jason speaking about middle class families with parents who work 3 or 4 jobs:</p>
<p>In Jewish or Asian families, you’ll find that instilling a good work ethic begins from a young age. You’ll get good grades, go to a good college, good grad school, get one single great job etc. In these middle class families, the parent won’t have realized that he needed to work hard until much later. The kid would’ve done ‘okay’ in school, gone to the local college, not gone to grad school, but then have begun a family and realized that, oh, my mediocre life doesn’t cut it. Again, this isn’t necessarily what happens to all middle-income families, but is a good example of what would’ve happened.</p>
<p>And in regard to Latinos and Black, well, the older black generation of America still remembers segregation. In the town I live in, even people in their 40s or 50s remember when they went to segregated schools (I live in the South). Some of the young generation is, unfortunately, falling into the life that their grandparents got accustomed to, and eventually so did their parents- that of a ‘second class citizen’. Once our generation of black Americans take over, I believe their children will have as many chances as any other citizen in the US does.</p>
<p>As for Latinos, if you’ll notice, most of the Latinos in the US are from rural, indigenous areas. Not to profile racially, but you can tell by their faces- the russet skin, the slick dark hair, the almond eyes, etc. These are people that probably came from insanely poor areas, and are still trying to make it in a country where they aren’t even citizens, and thereby barely regarded as humans by the law. While their children may have been born in the US, they are being born to extremely hard family situations.</p>
<p>If you place the Latino and Black cultures side by side, the Latinos are at least one generation behind the blacks in terms of development. The current black grandparents could be paralleled to the current Latino parents, and the Latino children in our generation may someday have children who will fit in better with American culture and have very good lives.</p>
<p>**Now, I’m not Jewish nor am I Asian- ironically, I come from a South American country. ** However, my family is of European descent, we’re from a very urban area in our home country, we’re naturalized citizens, both of my parents are white-collar professionals, and both of my sisters and I are expected to go to top universities and get high paying jobs. While money is still very tight, we’re in a situation where my parents can allow my sisters and I to focus on our studying and nothing else.</p>
<p>Think about it. On one hand of the spectrum, you have a 5th generation American, and his or her parents are probably comfortable enough with their middle-class lives that they just want their children to do ‘okay’ and live like they do. On the complete opposite hand, you have blacks and Latinos who are trying to recuperate from extenuating circumstances in order to give their children better lives, but this also takes them away from spending the time with their children that is required in order to instill good work ethic. In the middle of this spectrum, you have Jews and Asians and other more well-settled immigrant families, which live in a situation where the parents still have some of the “immigrant mentality”, I guess, that they want their children to succeed unlike the 5th generation American, and these are also families that have the ability to sacrifice time and money for their children’s success unlike the blacks or Latinos.</p>
<p>^^ I can’t say about Jews, but not many Asians were well off when they arrived here. A lot take on low paying jobs. However, recently I’ve noticed that the new present generation of Asian immigrants are well off. I saw that a lot of them are a lil more richer and more educated than my parent’s generation and prior of that. </p>
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<p>Huh?? I just said that some blacks and Latinos are just as hard working as some Asians.</p>
<p>My grandparents came here from the Caribbean, and like many parents described on this board, they stressed the importance of an education to their children and so on. Because they came here in the 60’s when minority stereotypes were so prevalent, they warned my parents, “People are going to judge you and think you are lazy because of your race. Go to school and be educated so you can prove them wrong.”
I think its more of the children of immigrants period…the smartest kids I know are 1st or 2nd generation in this country, and their parents push them to work hard.</p>
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<p>damn, I really like this. Also I know a well off mexican man (my uncle, he has an elevator in his house for what I assume is used to carry up his gold and money because that’s really unnecessary) and he instilled in his children to go to good schools (Dartmouth for the son, Columbia for the daughter). My other cousin who’s mother became a police officer went to West Point. I think I notice that the wealthy mexican later generations do really push education, especially when they got their wealth by going to college.</p>
<p>For instance, my parents don’t actually care what college I go to or how my grades are or if I’m skipping so long as I was getting As and Bs (even a C was okay, just not a lot of 'em) and graduating HS (they never graduated high school or considered college, my mom has a philosophy that all colleges are the same which I kinda believe). But my uncle would come and visit and always annoyingly ask about colleges I was considering and how my grades were, one aunt even really wanted my SAT scores and to see the paper result.</p>
<p>Among mexicans that have been through college they often come back to their neighborhoods and push it on the younger. My theater teacher actually came back to her high school from Yale to teach even though she had other options. That was always crazy to me but now I see myself also coming back to this city and area of town just to push other kids to go to college more. So I guess I just like that theory quoted, that latinos can move forward. My grandma was so mad when I told her I was mistaken for Indian when I visited college, saying that everyone assumes we’re the dumb ones and asians are the smart ones. She said they think of us as mules, just something used for labor with no brain and that it’ll change as the kids go to college.</p>
<p>Because if you don’t do well in an Asian family, you get beaten… It’s almost abusive at times.</p>
<p>oh, and before I saw that post I was gonna make a dick joke about asians and jews and compensation, just so ya’ll know, but at the end be like “j/k, this all seems really freakin’ racist”</p>
<p>duuh obviously because if you’re a first generation American you’re more likely to be pushed to be even more sucessful & better off than your parents.</p>
<p>^ Actually, I also really dislike how you stated that. You’re also assuming that all immigrants who come here are just doing so because their lives back in their home countries were so bad. Is this the case for all immigrants? No, each and every immigrant has their own story. Some might come from rural areas, some might be middle-class like I am, or I know one girl from the same country I’m from who moved to the US because her father earns multi-million dollar salaries working for American oil companies.</p>
<p>In conclusion, it’s not quite ‘obvious’.</p>
<p>And aren’t you Somalian, as well? I don’t want to be such a bit*h, but if I were you I’d feel ashamed for generalizing.</p>
<p>I’m Jewish and my dad is a foreigner. He tells me that part of the reason why he’s so competitive and proud (He’s been the top earner at his firm for years) is because of Jews’ history. He feels the need to prove himself in a way… The Holocaust was such a horrible, despicable event. Perhaps we want to continue showing the world how strong we are by being so successful in so many fields (you didn’t mention the tv/film industry.)</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>The part about motivation from history really bothers me. Many jews dont even identify with their culture. To be honest, many high achieving jews at my prep school often claim that they are very “nonjewish.” Many would probably never bring up that they are jewish if others dont ask. </p>
<p>A lot of the reformed jews are much more lax with their religion and thus i have a hard time understanding how the religious and historic culture will enhance achievement in the upcoming generations. It very well be so for this generation of jews though.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, Jews have been ***** on in history, but so have Gypsies and other minorities. That doesn’t mean that they continually do better. </p>
<p>I’m a non-practicing Jew by birth/heritage. My dad is 100% Jew but non-practicing. His mom’s family all died in the Holocaust (she was shipped to America right before the Holocaust started). Our Jewishness has nothing to do with our successes and failures. Half of my dad’s brothers are very wealthy and the other half are just scraping by. </p>
<p>Most of my Jewish friends are the lax Jews that jason describes. I don’t know ANY Jews of my generation or my parent’s generation that are driven because they’ve been shat on in history. </p>
<p>I however am partially driven by my Roma heritage. But that’s really because I hate stereotypes. Most stereotypes have been “overcome” in academia and the world in many regards, but Gypsies not so much. Especially not in Europe lol.</p>
<p>^^But there’s an important distinction between Judaism as a cultural force and Judaism as a religious force. Even for Reform (not reformed, hehe) Jews (though certainly not all), there’s still an element of cultural/secular Judaism, whether that’s bagels or Seinfeld or whatever, whereas for Orthodox Jews their Jewish culture is religious/traditional/scriptural. Obviously there’s no correlation between bagels and academic achievement, but the scholarly religious Jewish tradition has certainly been secularized, and there’s an undercurrent of that tradition in lots of Jewish culture/humor/media/etc, which in turn influences the values of many Jews.</p>
<p>Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha.
Wow… this is such an interesting thread 
I think it’s pretty funny. It’s flattering to be in the race that’s thought of as ‘successful’ and ‘smart’ (I’m Asian) but honestly it doesn’t really matter that much. Honestly speaking, Asian parents are a LOT harder on their kids than (most) American parents are. They place their emphasis on music and academics. Usually the Asian student would be outstanding at Math and maybe Science, and they’ll be exceptionally good at an instrument (usually the piano or the violin. USUALLY, but not always.) Americans seem to like to let their kids explore their interests more - and I like that! I’m more American than I am Asian, in my opinion. See, Asian students don’t always ENJOY what they do - in fact, they probably feel pressured and overwhelmed a lot of the time. I think Americans are just more chill (I’m talking about MOST of them, not necessarily ALL of them - I’m not setting any racial stereotypes here) and Asians place a lot of emphasis on what the PARENTS think will allow their kids to succeed in life.</p>
<p>Then again, our parents are preparing us to solve problems that don’t even exist right now. We’ll see who turns out better, huh. :)</p>
<p>Jason, how old are you? Just wondering.</p>
<p>Many Jews who don’t identify as Jewish may do so BECAUSE they want to get away from the social stigma. If another holocaust does ever happen, or Jews become a discriminated minority again, or whatever else could happen, they would never want to be associated with the Jewish culture.</p>
<p>OR, they’re so sick of having overbearing parents that they want to hide what they’re families are like (the stereotypical Jewish family).</p>
<p>Honestly, I know the pressure of wanting to be ‘normal’ in a country that’s still perceived to be of a Protestant, white majority, ESPECIALLY if you go to prep school.</p>
<p>Why is this so hard for you to understand? You’re coming off as a bitter little boy who wishes he could do better than the Asians and Jews in your school, and who is using their culture as motivation to channel your bitterness at the fact that you can’t do better. You can, you just have to work your butt off.</p>
<p>p.s. Just because someone isn’t a practicing Jew, that doesn’t mean that their parents and the rest of their family aren’t either.</p>
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<p>Okay first of all it’s SOMALI. NOT SOMALIAN. I’m also Arab.</p>
<p>And what the hell do you mean by I should be ashamed for generalizing?</p>
<p>ufff.</p>
<p>I think that Jews & Asian people simply like to stress the importance of work ethic and how studying hard will make you more successful and take you places.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to generalize. My parents came from middle class families that were well off. Even my grandpa was the fmr. PM of Somalia.</p>
<p>I’m just thankful my Mom was fortunate enough to win the greencard lottery to get her greencard! So now she’s an American citizen.</p>
<p>I’m not complaining! If she didn’t win who knows where I’d be today!</p>
<p>hahaaha</p>
<p>Im 17 for Metallika.</p>
<p>Im just curious, are jewish parents as hard on their kids as asian parents are? Many of my asian friends have RIDICULOUS parents that force them to undertake activities that my friends obviously do not want to do. One friend’s parents even occasionally hit and beat him. Are jewish parents like that too?</p>
<p>As upper middle class whites, my parents have been relatively lax on me but continue to drill into me that only through education can i rise to the professional world. They drilled into me from a young age that the medical, law, and business community are highly glamorous and respected. They always talked about their family friends and relatives. Oh look at uncle Matt, the upper mid level corporate manager. Or look at Aunt Maureen, the Pediatrician. Of course, the unsuccessful ones usually are best left unmentioned…</p>
<p>I have a very simple answer actually:</p>
<p>Its because we don’t major in dead field areas like psychology, art, or philosophy. Yes, they can be interesting, but we don’t do them at all.
A lot of white and black people end up doing whatever that interests them. Yeah, life doesn’t work that way for Jews and Asians.</p>
<p>We major in whatever the hottest field is. A lot of Asians major in computer science (pays avg of 140 K). Jewish people usually enter the finance field.
Asians and Indians go premed to become doctors. </p>
<p>Go figgureee.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that back then when Jews were heavily discriminated against…they didn’t have many options for employment so they were kind of “forced” into banking and finance…or even starting up their own businesses.</p>