In the Paper Tigers essay, much time is spent condemning the highly regulated degree of ambition deemed appropriate for Asian Americans. Yang consciously rejects this, and wants the freedom to aim higher. From his Paper Tigers essay (and partially requoted in the article) he references James Baldwin:
I wanted what James Baldwin sought as a writer —“a power which outlasts kingdoms.” Anything short of that seemed a humiliating compromise. I would become an aristocrat of the spirit, who prides himself on his incompetence in the middling tasks that are the world’s business. Who does not seek after material gain. Who is his own law.
This, of course, was madness. A child of Asian immigrants born into the suburbs of New Jersey and educated at Rutgers cannot be a law unto himself.
I think it's fair to describe those who seek "a power which outlasts kingdoms" as "ambitious". The question is whether current American society treats this degree of ambition by Asian Americans the same as it does those of other races.