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Indians in Southeast Asia should at least mention the fact almost all of the Southeast Asian nations except Vietnam were formed on models drawn from India. The book is not just a compilation Migrations and Cultures: A World View of historical curiosities, though. From By Thomas Sowell. New York: Basic Books, 516 pages, $30.00 the perspective of comparative historical sociology, the most interesting aspect of these accounts is their consisReviewed by Carl L. Bankston III tency. Whether they went to the Baltic, the Volga, the American Midwest, Brazil, or Australia, the Germans remained The most commonly accepted expla- volume traces the worldwide migrations German. They not only tended to cling nations of continuing group disparities of Germans, Italians, Japanese, Chi- to their own language, but they also reinvolve the structures of economies, nese, Jews, and Indians. Through de- tained attitudinal traits, such as zeal for political oppression, and variations in tailed descriptions of the experiences of hard work and respect for education. marketable skills or educational back- each of these, he attempts to show that The Chinese have been traders and gengrounds. In all of these explanations, the destinies of the migrants have been erally successful business people advantages or disadvantages attached chiefly determined by cultural heritages whether they settled in Thailand or to group membership are seen as im- brought from their homelands. The so- Malaysia or New York. Jews have exposed from the outside, not as results cial, political, and economic structures celled out of proportion to their numof characteristics of the groups them- found in host countries are relevant but bers in commercial and intellectual selves. If we could create less exploit- less important than culture. endeavors through the centuries and ative economic structures, ensure equal Migrations and Cultures is not a across the continents. political rights, or endow all of our citi- work of original historical scholarship Sowell does not claim that the pozens with university educations, the but an interpretive synthesis of second- litical regimes that have greeted these thinking goes, ethnic stratification ary sources. The author has managed migrants have been inconsequential. would disappear. an impressive amount of reading on Being placed in detention centers durTextbooks on race and ethnicity rou- each of his nationalities. Even if one ing World War II was a major setback tinely reject and denounce cultural ap- were to reject his argument altogether, for Japanese Americans. Malaysia's proaches to inequality. From the the work ·should still be useful as a bumiputra system of affirmative action cultural perspective, ethnic or racial source book on global migration. It is in favor of ethnic Malays has limited groups exist because their varying his- filled with fascinating historical facts. Chinese representation in universities. torical experiences have caused them It tells us, for example, that while the Official anti-Semitism has placed peto develop different systems of norms, badly treated Japanese in the United rennial barriers in the paths of Jews. But values, and patterns of behavior. They States were overwhelmingly loyal to the political action does not appear, in these are unequal because some of these cul- cause of the Allies, the much better pages, to be a way of advancing group tural systems are better suited than oth- treated Japanese in Brazil remained fa- interests; rather, politics seems always ers to upward social mobility. natically dedicated to their ancestral to act as the spoiler. Malaysia's official Many social scientists see this kind land and refused to believe in Japan's policy of discrimination against Malayof cultural explanation as claiming that defeat even after the war's end. It re- sian Chinese has complicated the lives some cultures are better than others and counts the little-known story of the hun- of the Chinese without greatly advancas justifying social injustice. It is pref- dreds of thousands of Chinese shipped ing the economic participation of the erable, they believe, to strike the from Macao to the Caribbean and South Malays. Uganda's expulsion of the Innonjudgmental pose of acknowledging America during the nineteenth century dians caused economic disaster for all "cultural diversity": Cultures can only in brutal indentured servitude that dif- Ugandans. be sources of general enrichment for all, fered little from slavery. Economic structures are also, in never sources of success or failure for The book's geographical and histori- Sowell's view, less important than culany single group. cal breadth does lead, occasionally, to tural traits, although he does recognize Thomas Sowell's newest book is a small errors and oversights that might that these structures can provide opporcollection of case studies that offers be noticed by nitpicking specialists in tunities to make use of cultural assets. evidence that ethnicities persist because particular fields. In discussing the Chi- Though the Indians are vastly overrepof the strength of shared traditions and nese in the Philippines, the derogatory resented in professional, technical, that these traditions have socioeco- Tagalog phrase intsik beho is translated managerial, and administrative occupanomic outcomes that are consistent as "old pig," although it actually means tions outside of India, jobs for large across time and space. Sowell's hefty "old Chinaman." The description of the numbers of managers, doctors, and en-

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gineers do not exist in India. Italians have returned to Italy wealthy from years of hard work, but the hard workers in Italy remain poor. Although the Italians in the United States have flourished, they have not had nearly the business success of Italians in Brazil or Argentina, since the Italian Americans arrived during a relatively late stage of the nation's economic development, when members of other groups already dominated the major businesses. What are these cultural characteristics, these sources of "cultural capital," to use Sowell's term, that have such pervasive and long-lasting effects? Skills and knowledge, even of the broadest varieties, seem to play only minor parts in the cultural traditions discussed here. To be sure, the Germans are said to have a military heritage, which made them useful for shaping the armies of North and South America. For the most part, though, skills appear to have been products of culture, rather than components of it. Japanese migrants brought with them no specific skills, but they did bring (in Sowell's words) "work habits, perseverance, social cohesion, and lawabiding patterns of life" (p. 138). Similarly, the Italians "accumulated both skills and capital in their new settings" (p. 174). Social psychological traits appear to have encouraged the acquisition of both knowledge and wealth. The acquisition of knowledge and wealth on the part of migrants, Sowell argues, is generally beneficial for host countries. He does a good job of debunking the myth that middleman minorities somehow "exploit" other groups in a society. Contrary to anti-Semitic propaganda, the Jews in Argentina rose to economic prominence by offering their customers better deals than other shopkeepers, not by cheating people. The Chinese in Thailand actually created large parts of the Thai economy. Migrations and Cultures presents a convincing argument, then, that there is something about being German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, or Indian that is beneficial both to migrants of these groups and to the countries that receive these migrants. One of the chief limitations of the book, however, is that

the reader never gets a completely clear from being more important than the explanation of just what that something economic and social structure of the might be. The author devotes most of host country, are often so productive the book to discussing outcomes and precisely because of the position of then rather vaguely attributes the migrants in the social and economic outcomes to "cultural capital." Values, structure. habits, and family structures are all Despite these reservations, I believe mentioned, but these are not described that Sowell has produced an erudite and in detail, nor is there any attempt to dis- valuable defense of the cultural explacuss how these various aspects of cul- nation of inequality among groups of ture relate to each other. people. His work raises a number of Similarly, Sowell offers only hints important and disturbing questions. If about how different groups develop ethnic disparities are produced by diftheir forms of cultural capital. The origi- ferences in cultural capital and not by nal homelands appear to shape culture, political power or economic assets, how but it is not clear just how. The geo- can we reduce these disparities? Cergraphical features of homelands are tainly not, Sowell would suggest, by mentioned, reminding one of Arnold legislative fiat. Can people, through Toynbee's old "challenge and response" conscious cultivation of ethnic solidarexplanation of differential accomplish- ity or by some other means, improve ments among civilizations. Political and their portfolio of cultural capital? cultural climates in the native country Should we simply accept some level of are also suggested: The Brazilian Japa- ethnic stratification as inevitable? If so, nese differed so radically from the U.S. how can we avoid explosive resentJapanese because the latter had left ments such as those that led to the exJapan during the tolerant Meiji era pulsion of Indians from Uganda or, for whereas the former had emigrated dur- that matter, to the burning of Korean ing the violently nationalist Taisho era. shops in Los Angeles? But if these cultural fluctuations in the The author does suggest in his conhome country could wreak such thor- clusion that the rapid accumulation of oughgoing changes in the migrants, one cultural capital, usually produced by wonders, why do characteristics persist borrowing from other cultures, can prothrough long stays in the host countries? duce dramatic economic and social The similarities among the six dis- changes. If this is the case, it might have parate groups that Sowell treats also implications for current public debates make one wonder to what extent their about immigration and multiculfates have resulted from Chinese or turalism. Instead of arguing about the German (for example) culture in par- skills or racial composition of migrants, ticular and to what extent they have we might want to consider what kinds been beneficiaries of migrant culture of ideas and attitudes they carry with per se. In his accounts of the discrimi- them. Instead of simply celebrating natory treatment experienced by group "cultural diversity," we might want to members, Sowell does not seem to con- take cultures seriously as ways of adaptsider the possibility that being outsid- ing to the world that have objective ers, being unable to blend in to the host desirable or undesirable consequences society, may actually help immigrants for those who maintain them and for develop an advantageous set of social those who adopt them. relations. Belonging to a small society surrounded by strangers, immigrants CarlL. Bankston Iff is assistantprooften enjoy high levels of solidarity and .fossor ofsociology at the University of trust within their own communities. Southwestern Louisiana. He worked They can make low-interest loans to one with the U.S. Indochinese &jugee Proanother, backed by little or no collat- gram in Southeast Asia for a number eral, because debtors who renege on ofyears. He has just completed a book, their obligations risk ostracism. Thus coauthored with Min Zhou, on Vietnamit is possible that migrant cultures, far ese adolescents in the United States.