East Lansing, Mich.
In most fraternity houses, a display of photographs shows the membership roster -- almost always, row after row of white faces.
The number of minority students attending college continues to rise,
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but the traditional fraternity is still largely a white institution.
At the same time, colleges are seeing an explosion of Latino, Asian-American, and multicultural fraternities and sororities, which are joining the long-standing black groups as alternatives to the traditional Greek system. (National membership statistics on black fraternities are not available, but officials on several campuses say their figures have not changed much in the last decade.)
Minority students who sign up say they are looking to bond with others who share similar cultural interests; they want to join a social organization but are turned off by the homogeneity of mainstream fraternities and sororities.
And many say they are offended by some Greek activities with racist undertones.
In 1997, for instance, the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Indiana University at Bloomington was suspended for sending its pledges on a scavenger hunt to find, among other things, pictures of “any funny-lookin’ Mexican.”
“Some of these mainstream fraternities have been established for so long, and they have deep-rooted traditions,” says Leonard Savala, a senior at Michigan State University and a member of Sigma Lambda Beta, a Latino fraternity that opened a chapter here in 1996. “As one Latino with new ideas going into a room of 30 to 40 Anglo-Americans, I don’t see my voice being heard.”
Even though 17 percent of the 34,000 undergraduates enrolled at Michigan State in the fall of 1998 were members of ethnic or racial minority groups, or were international students, they made up only 7 percent of the predominantly white Greek system, according to Billy Molasso, coordinator of Greek life.
Sigma Lambda Beta is one of nine black, Latino, Asian-American, and multicultural fraternities and sororities that have formed on the campus in the last five years, while membership in the predominantly white Greek organizations has slipped.
Michigan State is not alone. Within the last four years, 10 Latino, Asian-American, and multicultural fraternities and sororities have formed at Pennsylvania State University, and six Latino and Asian-American groups have formed at Purdue University.
Although college officials say the rise of ethnic fraternities should not stop the mainstream Greeks from stepping up efforts to diversify, they do not seem worried about segregation in the Greek system.
“There’s more of a choice now,” says Andy Robison, assistant dean of students at Purdue. “I don’t want to force a student to join an organization they’re not comfortable with. I’m of the opinion of fraternal Darwinism -- survival of the fittest. The new groups will form to meet the needs of today’s students, and if the existing groups do not, they’ll die off.”
The first Sigma Lambda Beta chapter started at the University of Iowa in 1986, and the organization now has 43 chapters and 20 colonies. (A new Greek group on a campus starts out as a colony before becoming a chapter.) The fraternity says it has grown from 500 members to 1,200 over all in the last five years.
“Most Latino students bring with them to college campuses a sense of cultural activism, and the traditional Greek organizations lack in that area,” says Juan A. Rodriguez M., a past national president of Sigma Lambda Beta. “That’s one of the reasons why Latino fraternities and sororities have blossomed.”
Although the minority groups are much smaller, their membership rosters seem more diverse. For example, the 10 members of Sigma Lambda Beta at Michigan State include a white student, a black student, and a Pacific Islander, as well as Puerto Rican and Mexican-American students.
By contrast, of the 60 men in Phi Kappa Tau, considered one of the most diverse of the mainstream fraternities on the campus, three are black, two Latino, and four Asian-American.
Jason Rosenbaum, president of the chapter and of the campus’s Interfraternity Council, says that the recruitment of a diverse group “is just a matter of having minority representation in our Greek publications and our recruitment video, and appealing to students on things that cross cultural boundaries, such as academics, leadership, athletics.”
Others say the rising cost of fraternity dues makes membership prohibitively expensive for many minority students.
“As long as we have to pay money to be in a fraternity, we’re not going to get a diverse body of individuals. We’ll just continue to get rich white kids,” says one white fraternity member at Michigan State, asking that his name not be published. The student, who says that he comes from an upper-middle-class family, as do most of his fraternity brothers, pays $350 a semester in dues for social events.
Because many minority Greek organizations at Michigan State are still trying to develop a strong alumni base, they don’t have the money to buy chapter houses. Their members live in dormitories or off-campus apartments.
Elba Santiago La Bonte, assistant vice president for student affairs at Michigan State and adviser to Sigma Lambda Gamma, a Latina sorority chapter, says the predominantly white Greek organizations must change their recruitment, education, and social programs to reflect the interests of minority students.
“In the Latino community, the use and abuse of alcohol is uncommon,” she says. “To drink until you’re falling-down drunk is socially unacceptable in our culture. They tend to dance more and do things that are less apt to get them in trouble.”
Sigma Lambda Beta’s events include a family-oriented festival where Latino children in the community play “traditional games that we played when we were kids,” including card games, a Mexican version of bingo, and dominoes, says Rudy Serrato, the chapter president.
Abelardo Rodriguez, a Michigan State junior from Chicago and one of the founders of the chapter, says he wanted to create a fraternity for Latinos after experiencing culture shock when he arrived at the university.
“In our culture, family is No. 1, and when you come to school, you need that bond,” he says. “In our fraternity, we give that to each other.”
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