My Sunday column looks at three groups that have been unusually
successful in the United States — Asian Americans, Jews and West
Indians. Read the column, but in a nutshell it argues that they
have succeeded in part because of an emphasis on diligence and
education, and also in the case of the West Indians because
families have stayed intact. I should say that the research in
this field isn’t the most reliable or rigorous. In particular,
West Indians are a small group, less than 1 percent of the U.S.
population, and the research on them has been highly
politicized. Conservatives including Thomas Sowell have
emphasized the success of West Indians and sometimes cited it as
proof that what matters at the end of the day is mostly values
and hard work. West Indians are nearly all black, so their
success could argue against racism being a major barrier. More
liberal scholars have argued that the West Indian success is
overstated and that it’s essentially an immigrant success story,
based on a self-selected pool who