Take Singapore as an example of how superior people overcome tremendous obstacles. Singapore is an island with no fresh water sources, no minerals, no self sufficient arable land, no large areas for military training, a small population, surrounded by enemies, impoverished at their founding, and the list goes on. Yet, the Singaporeans have become a 1st world nation. No black or Latino nation can claim the same. They are in their own country, ruling themselves, blessed with enormous natural resources, have the support of many Europeans. They should be one of the greatest areas in the world. Yet they are so dumb and poor and unimportant that even in America, they can't achieve much. If they can't do it in their own nations or in America, there is something inherently inferior in them.

See post above. The evidence contradicts the role of family environment in behavior.

Matt believes the usual left-leaning, feel-good statements that all races (not ethnic groups, though they are sometimes linked) have equal distributions of intelligence. This is a fallacy. Some genetic groups are smarter, some are stronger, some are faster, some handle cold better, some handle heat better.

However, I have seen no evidence that Asians are inherently smarter than Mexicans, although this may be possible. The single most important reason why Asians do well academically is the same reason why European- and Russian-descent Jews do well academically: their cultures and their families prize educational achievements and professional attainments. The intense desire for education makes the kids work much harder than average, and these kids succeed academically. Other groups in the U.S. do not prize education, and their kids do poorly and drop out at high rates. So, if Mexican and Central American immigrants or descendants of immigrants want their kids to succeed in school, they have to make education a family and neighborhood priority. They can't whine and play victim; they must convince their kids to work hard at school.

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/004064.html

Read the comment section as well.

That said, I pulled my son from his elementary school and moved him to a different one because there really are cultural differences associated with wanting to achieve education or acknowledging or accepting what education is.

One example of this was that I spoke to a neighbor about 4 years ago where I said my dream was always to buy a house, fix it up, and rent it out and she blurted out, "You want to be a landlord? What and rip people off for doing nothing?" So I knew that culturally she was teaching her kids that being a landlord was bad or evil.

What I think would be more interesting is to compare the experiences between Cuban and Puerto Rican families where the local Cuban families are highly successful and Puerto Rican families are viewed as less-successful.

Generally most of the Asian immigrants in the U.S. have higher expectations because, well, all the Asians with low expectations are still in Asia! After all, why would you leave your home country halfway around the world if you weren't ambitious or looking for something better?

And yes, IQ is largely hereditary, but that counts for nothing if you don't have the opportunity to use it.

Can you compare this to the contributions Asians have made in those industries

Even in the Top 40 music industry and in certain sports, blacks are more represented than whites considering they are only 12% of the American population.

In other words, let people be themselves and contribute to the world in their own special ways.

It is not fair to compare one group's specific achievements to that of another group. Every culture in making valuable contributions in their own way. Different but equally valid and significant to the history of modern civilization.

What makes America so prominent is it's extreme versatility from having so many cultures contribute and share their creations with the rest of the world.

The reason certain people did better, asians over hispanic, or white over black.... was simply b/c of social circles.

It was OK and cool for the asian (i'm including indians as well) kids to be smart. It was ok for them to be in the math clubs and etc.

But the hispanic and black kids who did the same were pretty much shunned from their own. Called "sell-outs" or told that they were trying to be "white".

So kids who should've and could've been doing better didn't b/c they wanted to be accepted by their piers. It's actually pretty sad.

I hope things have changed since then, but... I doubt it.

The truth, as is often the case, probably falls somewhere between the two. My own anecdotal contribution relates to a conversation I had had with an Hispanic shuttle bus driver. She used to work at a food processing plant, but decided to get additional training in the operation of some of the machinery. With her new skills, she qualified for an increase in pay, which motivated her to take classes in computer science at the community college. She is now finishing her Bachelors degree at the local university. This was done while working full-time and raising two children, in whom she instilled an expectation of completing a college-level education.

I had been raised with all of the advantages of a middle-class background, but I don't think I could have done as well if I had been shouldering so many responsibilities at once. Her ability and expectation to do hard work, when applied to improving her education, let her come out from behind very quickly.

If a similar values/cultural change were to occur in the Hispanic population, I think people would soon be discussing the "superior genetics" of Latin America.

a = average

b = bad

c d f = they are not familiar with these symbols

Education is everything to my Asian friends and their parents are fairly overbearing in their desire for their children to succeed. One old friend, Leslie, went into the arts, and is successful. She suffers greatly because of it. Her family is constanly admonishing her, for not becoming a doctor or lawyer, And her chinese Mother won't even speak to her.

In contrast my Hispanic friends look down on education, but highly value hard work, family and street-smarts. One friend of mine is a computer geek, like me, and his family is always putting him down for being too "white". I think they feel that education endangers their traditional values and that educated people act superior. Or as my buddy Gilbert puts it, "all stuck up and shit".

I realize that these stories are anecdotal and I can think of examples where this pattern does not apply. That said, I would have to assert that this more the norm in my circles than not.

Also, I covered Low Rider shows and met a really nice family of rather meager means. They were proud that they'd spent $30,000 fancy-fying an old car. That same amount of money would have bought both their kids a pretty nice college education, or at least the start of it, and the kids could have bought a fleet of fancy old cars.

It is also interesting to note the teacher Mrs. High was more than comfortable expressing dismay at the unfair hallway pass scandal but was quite silent about why Asians do better in school than Latino students.