How does the American Dream come true? It all depends

When it comes to the American Dream, how do you measure success?

If you go by Amy "Tiger Mom" Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld's new book The Triple Package, the most successful second-generation immigrants are those with the biggest houses, the fanciest cars, the most advanced degrees on their walls and the highest-paying jobs.

By these objective standards, certain immigrant groups - particularly Chinese, Jews, Nigerians, Indians, Cubans, Iranians, Lebanese and Mormons - do best, and The Triple Package argues that it's because they share certain cultural traits that give them a motivational edge.

A new study of second-generation immigrants in Los Angeles challenges that notion by widening the frame of the lens we use to view success. When you do, it's Mexicans - who rank lowest in education and income achievement - who have actually come the farthest. It's a matter of where you put the starting line.

UCLA sociologist Min Zhou and UC-Irvine sociologist Jennifer Lee interviewed Chinese-, Vietnamese- and Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles whose parents moved here from their home countries to find out how they felt about success and who they measured their success against.

"One of the interesting things we found is that the Chinese exhibited the most successful outcomes, but they were the least likely to feel successful, in part because they measured their success against such high-achieving co-ethnics, other Chinese who have achieved extraordinary outcomes. And they're also measuring their success against their parents and their parents are often highly educated," Lee said.

"So if your father had a PhD and you only received a BA degree or a master's, you might not feel as successful because by comparison you haven't achieved as much," she added.

Lee remembers interviewing one very successful Chinese female entrepreneur who owned her home in a swanky neighborhood in LA. "I think most Americans would see her as successful, yet when we asked her, 'Do you feel successful?' she said she didn't because she didn't have a master's degree and her parents and all of her friends had at least a master's degree," Lee said.

But when they asked her if she felt successful in relation to other White Americans or her non-Chinese friends, "she paused as if she had never thought to make that comparison before, and said, 'Well, compared to them, yes'."

"That revealed to me that she's really measuring success against this really high bar," said Lee.

Their study found that 64 percent of Chinese immigrants' children graduated from college, and of those, 22 percent went on to get a graduate degree.

"These figures are impressive but not surprising," Lee said. "In Los Angeles, over 60 percent of Chinese immigrant fathers and 40 percent of mothers have a bachelor's degree or higher. In turn, their children benefit from their parents' human and financial capital, giving them a boost in their quest to get ahead."