'Tiger Mom' Talks Culture And Success In America

"Tiger Mom" Amy Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, are back, this time with their  take – an explosive look — at what makes some ethnic and cultural groups successful in America.

Tiger mom Amy Chua drove half the world crazy with her last book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom,” about “the Chinese way” of child-rearing – tough, unbending, demanding.  Critics called it “abusive,” “insane.”  It was a bestseller.  Now Amy Chua, with husband Jed Rubenfeld, is back with advice for the whole society.  Learn from the Chinese, the Jews, the Mormons, the Nigerians, the Cubans who are succeeding in America.  Feel superior.  Feel insecure.  Control impulses.  Win.  Critics call this one a “new racism.”  Chua makes no apology.  This hour On Point:  talking success in America.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Amy Chua, co-author of "The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups In America." Also author of "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." Professor of law at Yale Law School. (@amychua)

Jed Rubenfeld, co-author of "The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups In America." Also author of "Freedom and Time" and "Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law."

Richard Alba, professor of sociology at the Graduate Center at City University of New York. Author of "Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America" and "Remaking the American Mainstream Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration."

TIME: The 'Tiger Mom' Superiority Complex -- "A new strain of racial, ethnic and cultural reductivism has crept into the American psyche and public discourse. Whereas making sweeping observations about, say, African-American or Hispanic culture--flattering or unflattering--remains unthinkable in polite company, it has become relatively normal in the past 10 years to comment on the supposed cultural superiority of various 'model minorities.' I call it the new racism--and I take it rather personally."

New York Times Magazine: Confessions of a Tiger Couple — "The book is a work of Gladwellian sociology that enters the same cultural minefield as 'Battle Hymn.' Looking at minorities like Mormons, Nigerian immigrants, Asian-Americans and Jews, among others, Chua and Rubenfeld contend that successful groups share three traits: a superiority complex, feelings of insecurity and impulse control. America, they conclude, used to be a 'triple-package culture' before it succumbed to 'instant-gratification disorder."