Ok, the first Asian Fraternity was Pi Alpha Phi Fraternity, Inc. founded in 1926 in California. However, it did not have a Beta chapter until 1988 I believe.
Many Asian Fraternities and Sororities started off as local groups, and have started to grow. Over the past 20 years, Asian Greeks have been on the rise because of the influx of Asians into the US. The first wave of Asian Immigration was with the Chinese in the 1800s, followed by the Japanese later on. The "newer" wave of immigration has happened since WWII, and thus the Asian American population has skyrocketed.
Lambda Phi Epsilon is the largest Asian Fraternity with 40 chapters.
Pi Delta Psi is the next largest with 18.
However, besides these two, there are not many that are really, truly, making strong National pushes.
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The Model Minority is a term that came up in 1994(I forget who said it off the top of my head). Essentially, it is the belief that Asians are the minority that never fights back, never speaks out, and always does what it is told. Many Asian Greeks today are aiming to break that stereotype through their existence.
Asian Activism is on the rise in the US, as seen through people such as Helen Zia, John Cho, Eliot Chang, Dat Phan, etc. Organizations such as the Organization for Chinese Americans (OCA) play an integral role in the political strugle of Asians in the US.
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Now, onto the whole family structure. Asian families are not the same thing as Asian American families. As with all people that come to the US, the effects of multiculturalism and mainstream society have affected Asian families as wel. In today's society, you see many second generation Asians going against their traditional and strong willed parents. This has causes a sort of duality in personality for many Asian Americans; i.e., they constantly balance the tradition of their parents with the American culture. In turn, this has caused many Asian Americans to become very interested in this issue, as it affects so many. AGLOs usually face problems when it comes to this issue in the fact that many Asian parents do not approve of Greek life...you are in college to study, and that's IT. Therefore, Asian Greeks do not have the strong family tradition and support that NPHC Greeks do (yet).
Because of the newness of the AGLO scene, Asian Greeks are slowly trying to define themselves. Right now, there is the idea of creating an Asian Greek Alliance (AGA), which would be the same sort of organization as a NALFO or NPHC. Personally, I am working closely with the creation of this.
As time progresses, I think we are likely to see the structure and organization of Asian Greeks come up much like NALFO and NPHC Greeks in their aspect of lifetime committment. This is a very slow process, as no Asian Greek has a Graduate Chapter (Asian specifically, because Iota Nu Delta, the South Asian Fraternity, has a Graduate Chapter) which causes the strong bonds in college to dissipate over time. With the development of strong Graduate Chapters, we will probably see the impact of Asian Greeks in the political spectrum as well, and hopefully, the expression of the Asian Voice.
I hope that helped people some. If anyone has any questions, fire away.
