My wife is a Filipina. She says that too many Filipinos have the tendency to tear each other down instead of helping one another. When one seems to be getting successful, the others will try to pull him back into place out of jealousy. She calls this the Crab Theory. Supposedly, if you put a bunch of live crabs into a bucket, sooner or later one will try to climb out. As soon as he does, the others will reach up and drag him back into the bucket with the rest.

I used to teach at the junior high and high school level. I saw the same thing happening sometimes with my black students. When one of them showed real academic ability, he/she was often ridiculed by the others for "acting white." For the life of me, I don't what it means to "act white", but I do know that if, as so many of their leadership claim, we ever hope to produce more black engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc., they're going to have to drop their own version of the Crab Theory and promote excellence instead of ridiculing it.

As for Filipinos, my wife and I think their tendency not to work together to benefit everyone may come from their geography. The Philippines consists of several thousand islands and the people speak many languages. The people tend to be very provincial and not willing to help other groups.

We contrast this attitude to so many Koreans we know who come to America and help one another. Korea is one landmass so perhaps the people feel more unified than Filipinos. We have great respect for how hard the Koreans work to establish businesses, create jobs, and raise their children to be good citizens. We have several Korean families living in our neighborhood and each one owns at least one business. They're the hardest working people I've ever known and the living embodiment of the American Dream.