The Triple Package (40 page)

Idealizing childhood
:
See, e.g., David Gettman,
Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), p. 37 (adults suffering “from their own adult pressures and anxieties” often “believe that early childhood should be fun and carefree”); Kay Sambell, Mel Gibson, and Sue Miller,
Studying Childhood and Early Childhood: A Guide for Students
(2d ed.) (London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2010), pp. 18–9 (noting the tendency to idealize childhood, imagining it as “carefree,” “fun,” and “perpetually happy”); Christina Schwarz, “Leave Those Kids Alone,”
The Atlantic
, Feb. 24, 2011 (describing childhood as “those first, fresh experiences of the world, unclouded by reason and practicality”; “[c]hildren have a knack for simply living that adults can never regain”); Linda F. Burghardt, “A Symbol of Carefree, Innocent Fun? Not in Oyster Bay,”
New York Times
, May 28, 2006 (describing a Long Island carousel as “a potent symbol of the happy, carefree childhood that parents want to give their youngsters”).

“I was burdened to excel”
:
E-mail to Amy Chua, May 22, 2012 (on file with authors); see also Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Children of Immigrants and Their Achievement: The Role of Family, Acculturation, Social Class, Gender, Ethnicity, and School Contexts,” p. 1, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Rumbaut2.pdf; Lisa Sun-Hee Park, “Ensuring Upward Mobility: Obligations of Children of Immigrant Entrepreneurs,” in Benson Tong, ed.,
Asian American Children: A Historical Handbook Guide
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), pp. 123, 129 (in a study of Chinese and Korean immigrants’ children “[a]ll the respondents expressed a need to ‘repay’ their parents” and “believed that their parents purposely stunted their own growth so that their children might prosper”).

“happiness has to take a back seat”
:
See Park, “Ensuring Upward Mobility,” pp. 125, 128.

Confucian expert Jin Li explains
:
Jin Li,
Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 38, 73–4, 90–2.

“I’ve never felt ready to receive her”
:
“Talk Asia: Interview with Fashion Designer Phillip Lim,” CNN.com (aired Mar. 23, 2011), http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1103/23/ta.01.html.

“I always see where I didn’t do things the right way”
:
Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, “The Vera Wang Interview: Made of Honor,”
Harper’s Bazaar
, Mar. 24, 2011.

“I feel like I’m just an investment good”
:
E-mail to Amy Chua, Mar. 14, 2013 (on file with authors); see also Vivian S. Louie,
Compelled to Excel:
Immigration, Education, and Opportunity Among Chinese Americans
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 48; Ruth K. Chao, “Chinese and European Mothers’ Beliefs About the Role of Parenting in Children’s School Success,”
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
27, no. 4 (1996), pp. 403, 412.

“they’re only proud of me because they can boast”
:
Louie,
Compelled to Excel
, p. 91; see also Tony Hsieh,
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
(New York and Boston: Business Plus, 2010), p. 8.

“‘Okay, well, then, I’m garbage’”
:
Louie,
Compelled to Excel
, p. 93.

“[My parents] just didn’t understand”
:
Amy Tan interview, Academy of Achievement, June 28, 1996, http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/tan0int-5 (accessed Mar. 25, 2013); see also Kim Wong Keltner,
Tiger Babies Strike Back: How I Was Raised by a Tiger Mom but Could Not Be Turned to the Dark Side
(New York: William Morrow, 2013).

“the highest rates of depressive symptoms”
:
Cathy Schoen et al., The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls (The Commonwealth Fund, Nov. 1997), p. 21.

“higher levels of stress and anxiety”
:
Desiree Baolian Qin et al., “Parent-Child Relations and Psychological Adjustment Among High-Achieving Chinese and European American Adolescents,”
Journal of Adolescence
35, no. 4 (2012), pp. 863–73; Desiree Baolian Qin et al., “The Other Side of the Model Minority Story: The Familial and Peer Challenges Faced by Chinese American Adolescents,”
Youth & Society
39, no. 4 (2008), pp. 480–506; Carol S. Huntsinger and Paul E. Jose, “A Longitudinal Investigation of Personality and Social Adjustment Among Chinese American and European American Adolescents,”
Child Development
77, no. 5 (2006), pp. 1309–24; Paul E. Jose and Carol S. Huntsinger, “Moderation and Mediation Effects of Coping by Chinese American and European American Adolescents,”
Journal of Genetic Psychology
166, no. 1 (2005), pp. 16–44.

study of high-achieving ninth graders
:
Qin et al., “Parent-Child Relations and Psychological Adjustment Among High-Achieving Chinese and European American Adolescents,” p. 870.

rates of alcohol abuse and substance dependency
:
“In 2011, among persons aged 12 or older, the rate of substance dependence or abuse was lower among Asians (3.3 percent) than among other racial/ethnic groups. The rates for the other racial/ethnic groups were 16.8 percent for American Indians or Alaska Natives, 10.6 percent for Native Hawaiians or Other Pacific Islanders, 9.0 percent for persons reporting two or more races, 8.7 percent for Hispanics, 8.2 percent for whites, and 7.2 percent for blacks.” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
Results from 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findings
(2012), http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k11Results/NSDUHresults2011.htm. Moreover, Asian American rates for alcohol “heavy use” or “binge drinking” are much lower than that of other groups. Ibid.

2010 nationwide psychiatric survey
:
Anu Asnaani et al., “A Cross-Ethnic Comparison of Lifetime Anxiety Disorders,”
Journal of Nervous Mental Disorders
198, no. 8 (2010), pp. 551–5.

a 1990s study
:
David T. Takeuchi et al., “Lifetime and Twelve-Month Prevalence Rates of Major Depressive Episodes and Dysthymia Among Chinese Americans in Los Angeles,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
155, no. 10 (1998), pp. 1407–14; see also Li,
Cultural Foundations of Learning,
pp. 66–7.

Asian American suicide rate
:
All data in the footnote are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Web-based Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS), Fatal Injury Reports, National and Regional, 1999–2010 (manner of injury: suicide) (years: 2000–2010) (age-adjusted rate), http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html. Looking solely at 2010 (the most recent year for which data are available) shows a slightly higher suicide rate for both Asian Americans (6.2 per 100,000) and white Americans (13.6 per 100,000). It has been widely reported that “Asian-American women ages 15–24 have the highest suicide rate of women in any race or ethnic group in that age group.” E.g., Elizabeth Cohen, “Push to Achieve Tied to Suicide in Asian-American Women,” CNN, May 16, 2007, http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html. As the CDC data indicate, this is not true; nor was it true in 2007, the year of the report just cited. See also American Psychological Association, “Suicide Among Asian-Americans,” http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/asian-american/suicide.aspx (calling it a “myth” that “[y]oung Asian-American women [aged 15–24] have the highest suicide rates of all racial/ethnic groups”). U.S.-born Asian American women may have rates of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide higher than that of American women in general, see Aileen Alfonso Duldulao et al., “Correlates of Suicidal Behaviors Among Asian Americans,”
Archives of Suicide Research
13, no. 3 (2009), pp. 277–90, but this finding does not appear to apply to Asian American women overall. See Janice Ka Yan Cheng et al., “Lifetime Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts in Asian Americans,”
Asian American Journal of Psychology
1, no. 1 (2010), pp. 18–30; M. Mercedes Perez-Rodriguez et al., “Ethnic Differences in Suicidal Ideation and Attempts,”
Primary Psychiatry
15, no. 2 (2008), pp. 44–53, Table 1.

Asian American
 . . . self-esteem:
Douglas S. Massey et al.,
The Source of the River:
The Social Origins of Freshmen at America’s Selective Colleges and
Universities
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 118–9, 122; Carl L. Bankston III and Min Zhou, “Being Well vs. Doing Well: Self-Esteem and School Performance Among Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Racial and Ethnic Groups,”
International Migration Review
63, no. 2 (2002), pp. 389–415, especially p. 401.

“If you’re doing well, you should be feeling good”
:
Stephanie Pappas, “Study: ‘Tiger Parenting,’ Tough on Kids,”
LiveScience
, Jan. 19, 2012, http://www.livescience.com/18023-tiger-parenting-tough-kids.html (quoting Desiree Baolian Qin).

Guilt
:
See Devorah Baum, “Trauma: An Essay on Jewish Guilt,”
English Studies in Africa
52, no. 1 (2009), pp. 15–27; Simon Dein, “The Origins of Jewish Guilt: Psychological, Theological, and Cultural Perspectives,”
Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health
15, no. 2 (2013), pp. 123–37; Joyce Antler,
You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 2, 137–8.

naches
:
Leo Rosten,
The New Joys of Yiddish
(rev. ed.) (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001), p. 262 (“Jews use
naches
to describe the glow of pleasure plus pride that only a child can give to its parents”).

“and my mother’s contempt for my father”
:
See
Jules Feiffer,
Hold Me! An Entertainment
(New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1977), p. 44.

propensity to challenge authority
:
See, e.g., Paul Johnson,
A History of the Jews
(New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 295 (“it is one of the glories of the Jews that they do not meekly submit to their own appointed authorities. The Jew is the eternal protestant”); Raphael Patai,
The Jewish Mind
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996), p. 332 (describing Thorstein Veblen’s view that Jewish scientists’ skepticism gave them “the prerequisite of immunity from the inhibitions of intellectual quietism”).

Footnote
:
Directed by Joseph Cedar and released in 2011,
Footnote
features a Talmudic scholar who has long labored in obscurity and is mistakenly informed that he has won the prestigious Israeli Prize; the true winner is his son, a much more prominent Talmudic scholar.

Trilling
 . . . Bell:
Alexander Bloom,
Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals & Their World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 19. Irving Howe describes a “crisis set off in the Jewish family” as a result of the expectations, disappointments, and resentments between traditional immigrant fathers and their more emancipated sons. Irving Howe,
World of Our Fathers
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), p. 254.

The Jazz Singer
:
See Ted Merwin,
In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006), p. 152.

“a caricature”
:
John H. Davis,
The Guggenheims: An American Epic
(New York: William Morrow and Co., 1978), p. 50.

“I have a bit of a phobia”
:
Michael T. Kaufman,
Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p. 5.

“My grandparents were Holocaust survivors”
:
E-mail to Amy Chua, Aug. 26, 2012 (on file with authors); see also Helen Epstein,
Children of the Holocaust: Conversations
with Sons and Daughters of Survivors
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979), pp. 16, 305–6; Aaron Hass,
In the
Shadow of the Holocaust: The Second Generation
(Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 58, 127–8.

“Jews are probably the most insecure group”
:
Dennis Prager, “Explaining Jews, Part 3: A Very Insecure People,” WND Commentary, Feb. 21, 2006, http://www.wnd.com/2006/02/34917.

“half-savage peoples”
:
Noam Chomsky,
Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians
(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999), pp. 481–3.

West Indian
 . . . immigrants:
Mary C. Waters,
Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 64–5.

Toni Morrison
:
Sunaina Marr Maira,
Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in New York City
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), p. 72 (alterations to quotation omitted).

women are excluded from the priesthood
:
Claudia L. Bushman,
Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006), pp. 31–3, 111–5.

“In the beginning”
:
Sheri L. Dew,
Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1987), p. 505.

women have been excommunicated
:
Joanna Brooks,
The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith
(New York: Free Press, 2012), pp. 122–31.