Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century

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or deported, immigration officials and other key personnel should honor U.S. human rights commitments and ensure fair legal procedures (e.g., access to counsel and assessment of cognitive abilities) and accurate court decisions (Legal Action Center, 2010). All relevant personnel within the legal system should also be trained to work with immigrants in general and those with mental disabilities in particular. A continuing and welldesigned training program oriented toward cultural and psychological sensitivity and a basic social science framework concerning immigrant issues should be developed and offered to all actors. The content and the process of being part of a legal procedure need to be understood from the cultural perspective of the defendant. It is thus important to recognize that a combination of cultural and situational stressors may lead to disorganized and confusing behaviors that may be perceived by key personnel as pathological. Finally, the training should be approached from an ecologically framed understanding (see the Guiding Frameworks section of this report) and an appreciation of the immigrant experience (Tsytsarev & Landes, 2008). In Conclusion The classic tools of the field of psychology—normed psychological tests and psychological batteries—have a long history of being misused. At the most basic level, assessment tools are often not developed for or normed on the cultural and linguistic populations to which they are applied (Ortiz, 2011; Suzuki et al., 2005). The challenges of the field when assessing immigrants and second-language learners are aptly summed up by the question, “Who is given tests in what language by whom, when, and where?” (Solano-Flores, 2008). Individuals assessing immigrants and second-language learners often do not speak the language and are not familiar with the culture of the person they are assessing. Newcomers are too often assessed too early in their language acquisition process (Cummins, 2000), with major life implications (Menken, 2008). The contexts in which they are assessed are often unfamiliar and in less than optimal testing conditions (Solano-Flores, 2008). Clearly, given the multiplicity of languages and cultural backgrounds represented by the new immigration, it is unrealistic to expect that normed tests will be available for every immigrant and language group encountered. It is simply not possible to evaluate immigrant populations with the degree of fairness and equity that is desired. This phenomenon is also related to the underperformance of bilinguals on both native language and English language tests. These issues are not well understood by psychologists in general practice and there are very few, if any, approaches that can be used in all cases to evaluate individuals in truly nondiscriminatory ways. Psychology as a field needs to recognize these limitations. It is also essential, given the rapid diversification of the United States, that research be conducted to increase our understanding of these issues. At the very least, appropriate assessment instruments and qualified psychologists should be used in settings where there are high densities of particular languages and cultures represented (e.g., Spanish in areas where many students or clients whose first language is Spanish are being served). When this is not possible and an assessment is done through an interpreter, extreme caution must be taken in making diagnoses and interpretations. Psychologists should be mindful of making high-stakes decisions about individuals’ lives based on what might be considered speculative assessment strategies with immigrant populations. 52 Report of the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration
Immigrant Populations in Educational Contexts The size and diversity of today’s immigration flow is reflected in U.S. public schools. As of 2011, 23.7% of school-age children in the United States were the children of immigrants (MPI, 2011), the majority (77%) of whom were second-generation citizen children and the rest (23%) foreign-born (Mather, 2009). Approximately 10.7% of all public school students in the United States are classified as English language learners (ELLs) 6 (MPI, 2011). There is tremendous diversity in the socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of these children. For example, elementary and middle-school children in New York City public schools speak 167 languages and come from 192 countries (Stiefel, Schwartz, & Conger, 2003). a resilience Perspective The pattern of high achievement among many firstgeneration immigrants is remarkable given the myriad challenges they encounter, including xenophobia, economic obstacles, language difficulties, family separations, underresourced neighborhoods and schools, and the struggle to get their bearings in a new educational system (V. W. Huynh & Fuligni, 2008; Pong & Hao, 2007; Portes & Zhou, 6 Emerging bilinguals is a term preferred by some scholars (see O. García, 2009; O. García, Kleifgen, & Falchi, 2008; Reyes & Azuara, 2008) who emphasize the bilingual competencies of immigrantorigin children and advocate for educational policies that develop their home language and cultural understandings. In this report, we use the term English language learner (ELLs), as it emphasizes the common experience of acquiring English primarily (though not exclusively) in a school environment and is more inclusive of multilingual and multidialectal children (e.g., indigenous peoples from Oaxaca of Mexico speak dialects of Mixteca; for them Spanish is already their second language. Such is also the case for individuals from the Fujian province in China; Mandarin is their second language). The use of this term is in no way intended to denigrate the value of home language and cultures or advocate for the superiority of English monolingualism; in fact, ELL replaces limited English proficient, a term used by the federal government, which did perpetuate a deficit perspective of this population. While the term English language learner refers to a fluid category of students who do not meet levels of proficiency in school settings (variously defined across contexts) and is problematic in this respect, it is the term currently most widely used by researchers, policymakers, and school districts. Immigrant Populations in Educational Contexts 1993). Immigrant children demonstrate certain advantages. They enter U.S. schools with tremendous optimism (Kao & Tienda, 1995), high aspirations (Fuligni, 2001; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001), dedication to hard work, positive attitudes toward school (C. Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995), and an ethic of family support for advanced learning (Li, 2004). As mentioned in the introduction, immigrant youth often educationally outperform their U.S.-born peers (Perreira, Harris, & Lee, 2006). First-generation immigrant students show a number of positive academic behaviors and attitudes that often lead to stronger than expected academic outcomes. For example, compared wth their U.S.-born peers, they have better attendance rates (García Coll & Marks, 2011), demonstrate more positive attitudes toward their teachers (C. Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995) and school (Fuligni, 1997), have higher attachment to school (García Coll & Marks, 2011; C. Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995), and earn higher grades (García Coll & Marks, 2011; Hernandez, Denton, McCartney, & Blanchard, 2011; Portes & Rumbaut, 2006). Some age groups have higher scores on standardized tests than do their Americanborn peers (García Coll & Marks, 2011), particularly on standardized math tests (Kao & Tienda, 1995). At the same time, a decline in academic aspirations, engagement, and performance has been documented over time (C. Suárez- Orozco, Gaytán, Bang, et al., 2010) and across generations (Fuligni, 1997; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001; C. Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995). On some measures of achievement and for some groups, firstgeneration students do not perform as well as their U.S.-born peers. First, because the first generation must contend with language acquisition, their performance suffers on tests of reading and English (Kao & Tienda, 1995; Ruiz-de-Velasco, Fix, & Clewell, 2000; C. Suárez-Orozco et al., 2008; N. Tran & Birman, 2010) when competing with U.S.-born peers. Second, a particularly difficult situation emerges for the group of immigrant children with interrupted or no prior education. 53
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Report of the APA Presidential Task
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Crossroads The Psychology of ImmIgr
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Preface One of the benefits of serv
Page 10 and 11:
Diane Elmore, PhD (APA Public Inter
Page 12 and 13: 2011; C. Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-O
Page 14 and 15: 2010; M. H. Lopez & Taylor, 2010).
Page 16 and 17: designed with their educational obs
Page 18 and 19: al., 2006), communication problems
Page 20 and 21: Sloan, & Sperling, 2011) and toward
Page 22 and 23: • The mesosystem is made up of in
Page 24 and 25: lesbian, gay, bisexual, disabilitie
Page 26 and 27: contributed to the growth of undocu
Page 28 and 29: All other countries 42% FIGURE 3. T
Page 30 and 31: to learn English (Bayley & Regan, 2
Page 32 and 33: Exclusion Act of 1882) specifically
Page 34 and 35: and mental health outcomes. Discrim
Page 36 and 37: adaptation: acculturation, Cultural
Page 38 and 39: In a number of studies, strong iden
Page 40 and 41: documented the problems caused by a
Page 42 and 43: Populations Facing Unique Challenge
Page 44 and 45: American region (Mexico, Canada, Ce
Page 46 and 47: the government or a group the gover
Page 48 and 49: Notably, in 2000, approximately 650
Page 50 and 51: often rely on their ethnic immigran
Page 52 and 53: Life span Considerations Looking at
Page 54 and 55: Transition to adulthood in the Unit
Page 56 and 57: In a study of Korean elders, there
Page 58 and 59: those of native English speakers an
Page 60 and 61: linguistic group in the United Stat
Page 64 and 65: Immigrant students whose education
Page 66 and 67: to read in the home language promot
Page 68 and 69: & Mapp, 2002). Teachers, in turn, v
Page 70 and 71: In a knowledge-intensive economy, h
Page 72 and 73: separation from country of origin,
Page 74 and 75: As individuals negotiate their iden
Page 76 and 77: Barriers to Treatment While an incr
Page 78 and 79: and traditional mental health setti
Page 80 and 81: effective than those conducted in E
Page 82 and 83: development, to remediation). Thera
Page 84 and 85: Considerations for the Field The Un
Page 86 and 87: time. For example, under what condi
Page 88 and 89: summary of recommendations Recommen
Page 90 and 91: • Support opportunities for dialo
Page 92 and 93: Culture brokering: When children of
Page 94 and 95: Protective factors: Conditions in f
Page 96 and 97: eferences Abraham, M. (2000). Isola
Page 98 and 99: Bedolla, L. G. (2000). They and we:
Page 100 and 101: Carhill, A., Suárez-Orozco, C., &
Page 102 and 103: Delgado-Gaitan, C. (1994, April). M
Page 104 and 105: Gee, G. C., Spencer, M., Chen, J.,
Page 106 and 107: www.splcenter.org/get-informed/inte
Page 108 and 109: LaFromboise, T., Coleman, H. L., &
Page 110 and 111: McKitrick, D. S., Edwards, T. A., &
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psychological, and educational appl
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Robjant, K., Hassan, R., & Katona,
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Stepick, A., Stepick, C. D., & Labi
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the job that’s tough”: The ELL
Page 120 and 121:
Waters, M. C., & Jiménez, T. R. (2
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AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION
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Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century

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