Beyond soccer leagues, music camps, and drama lessons, today’s youth are in an education arms race that begins in elementary school. In Hyper Education, Pawan Dhingra uncovers the growing world of high-achievement education and the after-school learning centers, spelling bees, and math competitions that it has spawned. It is a world where immigrant families vie with other Americans to be at the head of the class, putting in hours of studying and testing in order to gain a foothold in the supposed meritocracy of American public education. A world where enrichment centers, like Kumon, have seen 194 percent growth since 2002 and target children as young as three. Even families and teachers who avoid after-school academics are getting swept up.
Drawing on over 100 in-depth interviews with teachers, tutors, principals, children, and parents, Dhingra delves into the why people participate in this phenomenon and examines how schools, families, and communities play their part. Moving past “Tiger Mom” stereotypes, he addresses why Asian American and white families practice what he calls “hyper education” and whether or not it makes sense. By taking a behind-the-scenes look at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, other national competitions, and learning centers, Dhingra shows why good schools, good grades, and good behavior are seen as not enough for high-achieving students and their parents and why the education arms race is likely to continue to expand.
PRAISE
“How can we understand the modern Asian American? Pawan Dhingra explores the seemingly invisible paradigms of racial and cultural status hierarchies. By naming the knotty problems which limit the full humanity of Asian American lives, Dhingra poses a formidable and necessary challenge for our collective growth. Success Won’t Save Us bravely charts new territory for intellectual and cultural liberation.”
–Min Jin Lee, author of American Hagwon and Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award
“Anyone who believes that Asian American achievement protects them from the poison of white supremacy must read this book. Pawan Dhingra has written an honest, provocative, and surprisingly personal account of how racial capitalism is at the core of the model minority myth. More importantly, he offers a way out of systems of racial domination and into our collective liberation.”
–Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America
“With meticulous research and incisive analysis, Pawan Dhingra boldly calls for a paradigm shift to disrupt the conundrum of Asian Americans who decry overt racism while seduced by the toxic siren of ‘model minority success.’ His rational, clear, and accessible argument should be required reading to help move uninformed students, family, friends and community away from complicity and towards a united, beloved community capable of dismantling white supremacy.”
–Helen Zia, author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People
“Urgent, overdue and eminently readable, Success Won’t Save Us takes a provocative approach to exploring the racial location of Asians in US society and the American imagination, by making the point—with compelling evidence, historical context and personal insight—that Asian Americans have benefited from and enabled white supremacy, even as we have suffered from it. In doing so, Pawan Dhingra frames a timely argument for a vision of Americanness rooted not in (white) nationalism but in a racial, ethnic and economically inclusive shared identity from which Asian Americans cannot be readily excluded and expelled.”
- Jeff Yang, cultural critic and author of RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the 90s to Now