Question about Asian GLOs

[DeltaSigStan]

Originally posted by FiReKraCkEr
Honestly, that's because white woman wouldn't put up with the shit (most) Asian men put woman through. That's because most boys born into an Asian families are spoiled rotten and their mothers do everything for them and when they get married, they expect it from their wives.

I said most, not all. That's just what I've seen from living in Korea and being a Korean daughter with a brother.

My dad is half-Korean, but he was aleast nice to all his wives.

I will only agree with that because that's how my dad was raised, but since my folks divorced when I was young and I rarely saw him, that wasn't forced upon me.

On the other hand, the result is being raised by just your mother, which is not easy either.

Plus, I've seen this in other Asian families. But what would I know, I'm whitewashed, remember?

[DeltaSigStan]

Originally posted by DSTCHAOS

Unfortunately, Asian Americans have largely been overlooked but social scientists are trying to correct this error.

In your own opinion (because you appear to know a lot relating to this), why do you think that is?

I think it goes beyond "model minority", but I can't figure out what exactly. I believe there's several other stereotypes about us that don't exactly make us look any more "model".

[alphaalpha]

Originally posted by ladygreek
The old "raise your daughters and love your sons" syndrome. Yeah it happens in the Black community, too. This is when daughters are raised to cater to the males in the family, even their brothers.

okay, so i am not in a minority, but i have experience with this idea in my freakish community. In some of the churches that i have gone to ( and have not liked) the women are all about "pleasing" the men. I mean, the group would be like 75% women and all the activities that were planned were centered around men, as in will the men like this activity, oh what can we do to do everything in life for the men. As a feminist i was discusted with this idea. I mean, yeah consider the guys, but since they made up only 25% of the population why were all the activities centered around the men.

I am just saying this cause i have experienced this, Boys good, girls there to serve boys, in my way to white world and just wanted to share another viewpoint of when this could and can happen.

oh and if you did not get this i am against the boys good, girls there to serve boys is not my view of how the world should work.

[starang21]

Originally posted by FiReKraCkEr
Honestly, that's because white woman wouldn't put up with the shit (most) Asian men put woman through. That's because most boys born into an Asian families are spoiled rotten and their mothers do everything for them and when they get married, they expect it from their wives.

I said most, not all. That's just what I've seen from living in Korea and being a Korean daughter with a brother.

My dad is half-Korean, but he was aleast nice to all his wives.

uhhhh.......

that's an excuse a lot of asian women and asian people use in order to justify themselves. i'd venture to say it vastly has more to deal with ignorant stereotypes placed up us by the white media.

[starang21]

Originally posted by DSTCHAOS


Hi.

[starang21]

Originally posted by DeltaSigStan
On a serious note, I wish someone would do a study on the percentage of Asian men who date white women compared to White men who date Asian women. I believe that's the biggest gap there is in that regard.

i don't think i'd be too interested in that study.

[breathesgelatin]

Originally posted by alphaalpha
okay, so i am not in a minority, but i have experience with this idea in my freakish community. In some of the churches that i have gone to ( and have not liked) the women are all about "pleasing" the men. I mean, the group would be like 75% women and all the activities that were planned were centered around men, as in will the men like this activity, oh what can we do to do everything in life for the men. As a feminist i was discusted with this idea. I mean, yeah consider the guys, but since they made up only 25% of the population why were all the activities centered around the men.

I am just saying this cause i have experienced this, Boys good, girls there to serve boys, in my way to white world and just wanted to share another viewpoint of when this could and can happen.

oh and if you did not get this i am against the boys good, girls there to serve boys is not my view of how the world should work.

You make a good point. "Being raised to serve men" is a stereotype of Asian women and "needing women to serve them" is a stereotype of Asian men, sure. Certainly in some cases those stereotypes might have some basis in reality. But I think that the problem is not unique to Asian culture. This problem is a gender divide that is cross-cultural. The white community, particularly the "traditional" white community is just as guilty here and perhaps MORE SO because they're not even recognizing that they have those problems in terms of gender relations.

It's BS to say that Asian men all treat women badly. Sure, some Asian men do. But white, black, Latino men, etc., etc., can all treat women badly as well. Hoisting that stereotype onto only Asian men is unfair.

I think the problem is more with the idea of a "traditional" family in which the man is dependent on the woman for the housework and the woman on the man for income from a steady job.

Anyone interested in an interesting project on the ways in which gender, ideology, and ethnic backgrounds interact in family life and marriages should check out The Second Shift by Arlie Russell Hochschild. What she found was sometimes in families that saw themselves as modern and progressive were actually very gender-biased, and families in stereotyped, traditional, ethnic communities who purported to see the man as the head of the household actually had much more equal gender relations in practice. It's a good read and good at breaking down ethnic stereotypes.

[L.O.C.K.]

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.

~~~~

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.

~~~~~~

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.

[ladygreek]

Minnesota has one of the largest SE Asian populations. At first they were considered the "model minority." The media constantly reported about their academic prowess, work ethic, etc. But now it is changing. Asian gangs have grown tremendously within the last 10 years, and the violence associated with the gangs has, too.

The family structure has also suffered, because while the parents are immigrants and follow the homeland culture, the kids are "westernized" and rebel against the old customs.

Then there is the issue of spousal mistreatment that has hit the papers because of the rise of domestic abuse and murder. Added to that is the tension among the various clans such that Asian service organizations have a hard time co-existing.

So it seems a whole new stereotype is being developed by the media. And that is a shame. Because as usual with communities of color, the negative is always highlighted while the positives are ignored.

And yes, it still bothers me to see an Asian couplewalk down the street and the woman maintains a certain distance behind the man.

So I said all of this to say, I am glad to see the growth of AGLOs, because I see them playing a powerful role in the Asian communites the same as BGLOs do in the Black communities.

[Taualumna]

Second question: Why didn't Asian GLOs grow until the 80s and 90s, when HWGLOs were already giving bids to non-whites? By then, campuses probably had other ethnic-based clubs. I can completely understand why HBGLOs were created, and why SOME Asian GLOs were (those from the inter-war years and post WWII)

Thanks for answering the first question, btw...

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally posted by DeltaSigStan
In your own opinion (because you appear to know a lot relating to this), why do you think that is?

I think it goes beyond "model minority", but I can't figure out what exactly. I believe there's several other stereotypes about us that don't exactly make us look any more "model".

As a social scientist, I can say that starang21 is correct. It is about the percentage of the total U.S. population and the "model minority" stereotype. Studies that include a substantial Asian sample usually need to oversample to get a comparable sample size.

These studies, such as criminological studies, have largely concluded that Asians are the least likely of the minority groups to participate in certain types of deviance and "suffer" from social ills that many minority groups in America "suffer" from. This is usually explained through "their" upbringing. That also supports the "model minority" stereotype.

Sung Joon Jang is one of a relative few researchers who makes it a point to study Asian Americans. One interesting study that does not specifically address intermarriage is Jang's 2002 "Race, Ethnicity, and Deviance: A Study of Asian and Non-Asian Adolescents in America" that can be found in the journal Sociological Forum Vol. 17 No. 4.

What other stereotypes of Asians are there that don't fit into the "model minority" stereotype? There are none that I can think of because this stereotype is so vast.

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally posted by ladygreek
Minnesota has one of the largest SE Asian populations. At first they were considered the "model minority." The media constantly reported about their academic prowess, work ethic, etc. But now it is changing. Asian gangs have grown tremendously within the last 10 years, and the violence associated with the gangs has, too.

The family structure has also suffered, because while the parents are immigrants and follow the homeland culture, the kids are "westernized" and rebel against the old customs.

Then there is the issue of spousal mistreatment that has hit the papers because of the rise of domestic abuse and murder. Added to that is the tension among the various clans such that Asian service organizations have a hard time co-existing.

So it seems a whole new stereotype is being developed by the media. And that is a shame. Because as usual with communities of color, the negative is always highlighted while the positives are ignored.

The impact that those negativities have had on the group's image is a direct result of the "model minority" stereotype. If the stereotype did not exist, people would not be so surprised by the spousal abuse and murder. This would not be such a media spectacle if people did not place Asians on a separate plane as a "model minority."

Similarity, there was once a rise in psychological disorders and suicide in Asian populations. The pressures to fulfill the "model minority" stereotype (both in the U.S. and abroad) has become too much for many youth and young adults to bear.

[SOPi_Jawbreaker]

Back to the original question about why there is nothing like D-9 for AGLO's, I think L.O.C.K. makes an excellent point. Very few AGLO's have a strong national presence. Many are still regional, and some are locals. I think the three largest Asian sororities are alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Kappa Phi Lambda, and Sigma Psi Zeta. alpha Kappa Delta Phi has 36 chapters and colonies. Kappa Phi Lambda has 17 chapters. Sigma Psi Zeta has 16 chapters. However, KPL and Sigma chapters are mostly on the east coast. They do have a couple of mid-west chapters. Likewise, PDPsi chapters are mostly on the east coast, with a few chapters on the west coast. And my sorority has chapters mostly in California. So, even though we may have chapters elsewhere and are considered national organizations, we are concentrated on a certain coast (sort of like regional organizations). I think without enough orgs having a strong national presence, it's going to be hard to have something like D-9. Also, as other people have already stated, many of the national AGLO's are still young organizations, founded in the 80's and 90's. Most of the older AGLO's remained local or regional for decades or still remain local or regional to this day.

[DeltaSigStan]

Originally posted by starang21
i don't think i'd be too interested in that study.

I'm fully aware..., you have just yet to feel the milky soft touch of a devil woman hahahhaha

[DeltaSigStan]

Originally posted by DSTCHAOS
What other stereotypes of Asians are there that don't fit into the "model minority" stereotype? There are none that I can think of because this stereotype is so vast.

Well, I'm mostly refering to the steretypes placed on us because of pop culture, particularly amongst our young, like assuming we all race Hondas and Acuras and play DDR. Or that we all know martial arts.

Amongst Asians, there's the whitewashed stereotype, but that's an internal thing too. I know that happens within every race, but I think it's ironic that we're stereotyped as being "model", yet to do what I've been called as "acting white", gets you chastised.