Jewish Mothers, Tiger Moms, Immigrant Geniuses

Jewish Mothers, Tiger Moms, Immigrant Geniuses



http://www.forward.com/articles/138284/



In other words, immigration doesn’t explain the changing demographics of the Intel science contest. Ethnicity does. Put differently, the Intel contest is a story comprising, in roughly equal proportions, Chinese, Indians, Jews — each accounting for 1% to 2% of the American population — and everyone else.

I can hear your blood boiling out there. If it’s not immigration, what is it — genetics? Am I trying to say that these three groups are genetically superior?

Well, no. Actually, that makes no sense at all. Consider: Indians and Pakistanis are genetically indistinguishable. They were a single population for millennia until fairly recently in history. There are nearly as many Pakistani as Indian immigrants. Yet I found no Pakistani Intel finalists. The relationship between Chinese and Vietnamese isn’t much different.

As for Jews, a massive genome study released last year found that because of historical migration patterns, Ashkenazi Jews — who account for nearly all the Jewish finalists — are genetically very similar to northern Italians. There are tens of millions of Americans of Italian origin. They came in the same historic immigration waves as the Jews. Yet they do not appear as finalists in disproportionate numbers.

So what’s the difference between Indians and Pakistanis, or between Jews and Italians, or between Chinese and Vietnamese? Answer: culture. Parents pushing children. Jewish mothers and tiger moms.

There are other factors at work. Fully 24 of the 28 immigrant families among this year’s finalists had entered America on H-1B visas — granted to certain specialized professions, many of them in science. In other words many of our science whiz kids are scientists’ children. No big surprise there. But there are lots of scientists, and only a few have whiz kids — the ones who push.

Here’s what the list shows: Jews from Minsk push their kids, and so do Jews born in Great Neck. Indians from Bangalore and Chinese from Canton push their kids; whether Indian- and Chinese-Americans continue to do so in two generations remains to be seen, but I’m betting they will. Culture is a powerful thing.