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Scholars Mull the ‘Paradox’ of Immigrants

Providence, R.I.

The academic success, tendency to stay out of trouble, and physical health of children of immigrants to the United States tend to decline significantly from the first to the third generation.

That troubling pattern brought researchers together here recently at Brown University to examine a provocative question: Is becoming American a developmental risk?

More than two decades have passed since researchers began to document what they call the “immigrant paradox”: Immigrants generally do much better in American society than expected, given the challenges of navigating in a new culture, not speaking English well, and often having little money, yet their early success often is not...