Hi Debbie,
In my experience and observation, I have found that people gravitate(sp?) towards things that make them comfortable. Race is a factor, but not the only factor. You for example, are in a house that is majority "white". When you rushed,did you go in saying to your self "AAA house is mostly white and that's my main reason for joining it!" I doubt it. Maybe your reasons varied from "these people are really cool" to "wow, most of these people are the same major as I am!" or "this is a great org!" But at some point, you were comfortable with these people. For the other groups it's the same thing.
It's not so much that the new groups are forming just to be for latino/as only or asians only, but more so that they didnt feel comfortable for whatever reason when the went to the campus rush. Maybe the goals of the orgs didnt fit their needs. For example. alpha Kappa Delta Phi(no, that's not a typo) is a national Asian Amerian interest sorority. What that means is (I've had members tell me and it's on all of their websites)their org is NOT for asians only but if you are interested in the philanthropies that they support which are of interest to the Asian American communities then you are more than welcome to join. Yes, they have members that are not of asian decent, just as the Latina/o American, African American frats/ sororities do.
Something you need to understand is that the majority of "ethnic based orgs" are more community based as opposed to the IFC and NPC houses. We know that NPC and IFC also do philanthropic work but more as a side note. The ethnic orgs veiw being in a group a lifetime effort where the general feeling in most IFC and NPC groups is it's a college experience and that's it.
What's my point? I lost it somewhere after all my rambling
, but here goes in a nutshell.
"White" glo's are seen as mainstream because "whites"(general term which includes different euro-ethnicities) have been the majority in this country for a number of years. Ethnic minorities have always been forced to compare themselves by the standards of whites (beauty, economically, whatever). Always wanting to "fit in", joining a sorority /fraternity seemed like the right thing to do.
Ok, I'm not finished making my point but I have to get off the computer so I'll post this and come back and finish it.
X girl
