Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century

Sloan, & Sperling, 2011) and toward enforcement-only
policies (i.e., increased border security, deportations, etc.)
aimed at reducing the number of immigrants without
required documentation from entering the United States.
Psychologists should be aware of this complex demographic
transformation of the United States and consider its
implications as practitioners, researchers, and faculty.
Psychologists are, and increasingly will be, serving
immigrant adults and their children in a variety of settings,
including schools, community centers, clinics, and hospitals.
Psychologists have a unique and important contribution
to make to the immigration discussion in several domains.
Specifically, the field advances scientific research, promotes
the delivery of culturally and linguistically appropriate
services, and educates and trains psychologists and others who
work with immigrants. The goal of this report is to provide
evidence and direction that will enhance research, service
delivery, and education and training, as well as inform policy.
Guiding Frameworks
Immigrant Resilience
We were keenly aware of the sociohistorical climate in
which we initiated this report. Within the political and
media discourse, immigration is generally framed as a social
problem in need of solving (M. Suárez-Orozco et al., 2011).
Newspaper headlines, editorials, and blogs, as well as talk
radio and television, reveal a number of widely held negative
misperceptions about immigrants, including that they
are reluctant to learn English, take jobs from native-born
Americans, add to the crime problem, and contribute less to
the tax revenue system than they use (Chiswick, 2011).
Yet a careful reading of the research debunks each of these
myths (APA, 2007a; Chiswick, 2011). Research from a variety
of disciplines suggests that immigrants today are highly
motivated to learn English (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006; C.
Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008) and do so
more quickly than in previous generations (Foner, 2002). In
addition, as the second generation learns English, they rapidly
lose command of their parent’s language (Portes & Hao, 1998;
Wong Fillmore, 1991). Immigrants tend to be overrepresented
at both the highest and lowest ends of the educational and
skill continuum (Hanson, 2007; Schumacher-Matos, 2011).
Lastly, contrary to popular perceptions, undocumented
immigrants are unable to access a host of services (Yoshikawa,
2011) but regularly contribute to the federal system because
taxes and social security payments are automatically deducted
from their wages (Chiswick, 2011; Schumacher-Matos, 2011).
While reviewing the research literature, we found that
immigrants demonstrate a remarkable pattern of strengths.
They have very high levels of engagement in the labor market
(Chiswick 2011; Schumacher-Matos, 2011), and the children
of immigrants go on to outperform their parents (Waters,
2011). The vast majority of immigrants in the United States
are legal (Passel, 2011), and immigrants tend to report high
levels of trust in key U.S. institutions (Lopez & Taylor, 2010).
These broad strengths are highlighted in a consistent finding
across diverse and seemingly unrelated areas of research.
This finding, variably referred to as the “Latino paradox,”
the “epidemiological paradox,” and the “immigrant health
paradox,” demonstrates counterintuitive positive outcomes in
the face of multiple contextual stressors. Often first-generation
immigrant populations demonstrate the best performance
on a variety of physical health (L. S. Morales, Lara, Kington,
Valdez, & Escarce, 2002), behavioral health (Pumariega,
Rothe, & Pumariega, 2005; Takeuchi, Hong, Gile, & Alegría,
2007), and educational (Fuligni & Witkow, 2004; García
Coll & Marks, 2011) outcomes, followed by a decline in
subsequent generations. This pattern has also been identified
for populations emigrating from Asia and the Caribbean to
the United States (Razum & Twardella, 2002; Takeuchi, Hong,
et al., 2007), as well as various immigrant groups arriving in
Canada, Europe, and other prevalent immigrant destinations
(Beiser, Dion, Gotowiec, & Vu, 1995).
Although many recently arrived immigrants face a wide range
of risks, including poverty, discrimination, taxing occupations,
fewer years of schooling, and social isolation, they do better
than expected on a wide range of outcomes compared with
their counterparts who remain in their country of origin
and second-generation immigrants born in the new land
(Alegría, Mulvaney-Day, Woo, et al., 2007; Corral & Landrine,
2008; García Coll & Marks, 2011). While the significance
of the paradox has been challenged by some as an artifact
of statistical bias (L. S. Morales et al., 2002) and on other
methodological grounds (C. Suárez-Orozco & Carhill, 2008;
N. Tran & Birman, 2010), these limitations do not invalidate
the widespread nature of this phenomenon.
Although the immigrant health paradox was initially noted for
physical health outcomes, such as obesity, diabetes, and infant
mortality rates (see Hernandez & Charney, 1998, for an early
meta-analysis by the National Research Council), this same
10 Report of the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration