indian americans continuously outpace every other ethnic group socioeconomically per u.s. census statistics. thomas friedman, in his 2005 book "the world is flat", explains this trend in terms of brain drain, whereby the best and brightest elements in india emigrate to the us in order to seek better financial opportunities. indians form the second largest group of physicians after non-hispanic whites (3.9%) as of the 1990 survey, and the percentage of indian physicians rose to around 6% in 2005.