SHE'S back ... and she has brought the sweeping statements with her.
It turns out Amy Chua, the so-called "Tiger Mother" who published a book in 2011 arguing that Chinese women are superior mothers has more to say.
In a new book, The Triple Package, Chua and her husband, co-author Jed Rubenfeld, argue that some "cultural" groups of people are superior to everyone else.
As The New York Post reports, the duo deem the following groups as exceptional. (Incidentally, the Chua (Chinese) and Rubenfeld (Jewish) belong to two of them.)
• Jewish
• Indian
• Chinese
• Iranian
• Lebanese-Americans
• Nigerians
• Cuban exiles
• Mormons
"That certain groups do much better in America than others - as measured by income, occupational status, test scores and so on - is difficult to talk about," the authors write. "In large part, this is because the topic feels so racially charged."
Chua, a law professor at Yale, first became a media sensation in 2011, when The Wall Street Journal published an extract from her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
She herself is an American, raised in the Midwest, but she used her heritage and all the worst stereotypes of Chinese women - cold, rigid Dragon Ladies, hostile towards their own children - to criticise the Western way of parenting, which she also said would be the downfall of America.
Chua wrote about calling one of her two daughters "garbage" for being rude, dismissing a homemade birthday card as subpar ("I don't want this - I want another one"), refusing to let her girls watch TV or participate in school plays or have sleepovers, of threatening to give away a beloved dollhouse if her daughter couldn't master a complicated classical composition within days.
Her book really can be reduced to a simple argument: Chinese mothers are better than those of any other race, and these parenting methods are going to result in the West's big fear - the continued rise and ultimate supremacy of China.
Chua's book was a bestseller, so it's little surprise she's back with this even more incendiary thesis.
The author based their argument upon trends of American immigrant groups and identified the following three criteria as making these groups so successful:
1. A superiority complex
Any group that collectively believes they are inherently better than any other, say the authors, has an advantage.
2. Insecurity
At the same time, the authors argue, within these groups people are driven by insecurity, "a critical lever of success".
3. Impulse control
The "ability to resist temptation", is yet another factor the authors identify as leading to success, "especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task".
