Ethnic diversity: North vs. South
 

Someone posted a link to the list of girls who got bids at Auburn and one thing that stuck me immediately was the WASPyness of the last names - not very many "ethnic" names at an SEC rush.

My northern sorority had (and still has) girls with names that reveal LOTS of Irish, Italian and German backgrounds, plus Polish, Jewish, Czech, Japanese and a whole lot of different ancestries. The few with traditional "English" names were in the minority. I'm guessing the sorority list reflects the ethnic make-up of the school, but it was still a big surprise!

A lot of it is the history of the area. The South was settled by the English and the Scots, so most of the names are going to sound WASPy.

You get to the midwest and it was the second wave of immigration and you will see Polish, Irish, German, Czech, etc.

Many parts of the south are quite ethnically diverse. Auburn and other similar schools have less-than-diverse greek systems, however.

Well I wouldn't necessarily say less-than-diverse Greek systems, just that the various conferences/councils/what-have-you within the systems tend to be relatively homogenous. For example, there are mostly white women and white men in the NPC and IFC sororities and fraternities at most SEC schools; however, there are plenty of ethnic sororities and fraternities as well including the NPHC organizations and other organizations that fall into the multicultural category (I can't remember the name of their association). I think that is a recurring problem throughout the South; while our population may be just as ethnically diverse as anywhere else in the States, we tend to self-segregate more than other areas due to centuries-old traditions that we never even consciously recognize.

But what about diversity within so-called "white" ethnicities? The original poster stated that there were few non-"English" sounding last names....i.e. few names that sounded they were from "The Continent"

I'm guessing that most of the girls going through NPC rush are descendants of those first settlers, rather than those from other nationalities who came later. Not only that, I'm betting that if you were in an environment that was primarily English, you'd be more likely to Anglicize your name than someone who landed in, say, Pittsburgh or Chicago. Kendall Somers might really be Kimmy Sobieski.

I just took a quick glance and I noticed quite a few ethnic german last names on the list. There is also a whole section of "Mc" something, which could either be irish or scottish. But I didn't see too many italian names.

I would agree that it has allot to do with the people who live in that region and are therefore most likely to make up the majority of women going through rush. When I think of American-Italian food, I don't immediately think of Alabama.

I know of more and more people with "ethnic" names who have moved to the South and now have college-aged children - some of them must be considering the Greek system.

Yeah I would just attribute that to the ancestry of the majority of the population here...there are certainly Italians, Poles, Germans, and Eastern European NPC sorority members in the mix but they're just not in the majority, same as the general population. I was addressing the point shinerbock was making in this quote.

I went to a local comedy club several months ago. The opening act was a comic from New Jersey. He starts his routine with the question: "Heyyy how many Italians in the house??" :::::::::dead silence::::::::::::: He continued by making jokes about the Olive Garden, etc. I felt sorry for him.

Ethnic diversity is...not necessarily what people think it is all the time. At our COE for the university I attend, which I spoke at, they mentioned to us that we need to be more 'diverse' in the people we have in our sorority. Apparently, all the NPC sororities were told this. It's a bit difficult when you have a school with a small minority population that doesn't want to interact with WASPs. What they need to realize is that true diversity doesn't come from different skin colors or last names or heritages, though they can help. It comes from people who are from different walks of life. We have a girl in my sorority who is from a very small town. She's very country, loves horses, so on and so forth. She's VERY different from me: I grew up in a big city and have done very few of the things she has. Because of the way we were raised, we often have differing opinions and different experiences with things. We're diverse; people just assume we aren't because we both happen to be white.

I do want to encourage those who are still collegiate members to encourage their panhellenics to reach out to those who would not normally consider NPC organizations. It breaks my heart to be one of only a handful of black women in my organization and in an NPC on my campus period. Why?

It's an amazing experience and it's just so sad like when I went to SEPC and there were only a handful of black girls or women that are not white period. A lot of women just wave it off because they don't see themselves fitting in. As a Panhellenic Council officer who is involved in the recruitment process I personally seek out women who think sorority life is not for them or are not the same ethnicity as the women who make up the majority of the sororities on my campus. They love it when I show them that they too can find sisterhood in our organizations.

Very true, and the longer ago they came, the more likely it is that the name has been anglicized. My very Southern wife's family came to the South from Germany -- they anglicized their name about 225 years ago.

Question: Are people in the south less likely to identify with their non-British Isles ancestry than people in other parts of the US? Or is it just immigration patterns?