you have to look at ben fran colin's proverbs, they are all about preservation , thrift, savings, hard work. >> how did that change? >> i don't mean that they changed. they dropped out. america is still the same country but i think it's our success. in the '80s and '90s we actually stopped becoming an underdog. that's partially because of the prosperity. bus also, the fall of the soviet union meant that we were suddenly left without a rival. just accept yourself in a way, this striving, the need to prove yourself at the individual level and the national level maybe dampened a little bit. >> you also wrote that the reality, uncomfortable as it is to talk about it, that some groups are starkly more successful than others. were you concerned as you wrote that, that you would be accused of being racist as in fact you have been? >> it never even occurred to me. because it's amazing that you can't just state a statistic, that lebanese and iranian americans have this median income, it is in the census. much higher than national median. i'd like, if you can't just state a statistic, you know,