Asian-American greeks

[star02]

to OohTeenyWahine
alpha kappa delta phi IS NOT the only national asian interest sorority.. there are many many more, including my baby, Delta Phi Lambda (check us out at www.deltaphilambda.com)
Asian-interest sororities are new but a very rapidly growing phenomenon...i myself am a founding mother of my chapter of the sorority, being the eighth chapter nationwide. The sorority went national only 3 years ago.
As for the initial question, us asian are having an incredibly difficult time fitting into PHC/IFC. Some schools have started their own council to deal with this problem: the multicultural-Greek council (MGC). This too is very strong, especially in the midwest. i see many great things for it int he future!

[mmcat]

on your group's website.

[carnation]

I just saw a picture of one of our California chapters in the Arrow. Neat surprise! Almost all the members in the picture were Asian!

Originally posted by star02
to OohTeenyWahine
alpha kappa delta phi IS NOT the only national asian interest sorority.. there are many many more, including my baby, Delta Phi Lambda (check us out at www.deltaphilambda.com)

My bad. It was an honest mistake, no need to get the panties in a bunch.

I have actually heard of Delta Phi Lambda before, but my source misinformed me and told me it was "regional" rather than "national", ok? Ok.

[raving menace]

i think im da first one 2 post datz actualli in an asian-interest fraternity..4m my perspective i think pplz should jus go wit whutever organization they feel comfortable wit

[brownsugakdphi]

HI EVERYONE!
It's been awhile since I posted on this site, but since I saw the talk of my organization: alpha Kappa Delta Phi - I thought I'd post... In regards to being the only NATIONAL Asian Interest Sorority - we're not... but we claim to being the only NATIONWIDE Asian Interest Sorority of its kind. We currently have 35 chapters across the country, and we are blessed in being the largest and fastest growing Asian Interest Sorority.

We were founded in 1990 at the University of California Berkeley under the principles of sisterhood, leadership, scholarship, service, and Asian Awareness. At my University we have quite a diverse sisterhood including 3 latina sisters, one white sister, many bi-racial sisters, and I myself am included with 3 other sisters in being of Indian/South Asian descent. We're not the type of group who get's upset when we see Asians in a non Asian Interest greek organization - we're happy to see Asians getting involved wherever it may be...

[strawberrysismd]

we now have 2 Asian American women in our house; we used to have a girl who was half Polynesian and half something else that I can't remember; we have had some African American women, but we don't currently; and one of our new members is middle eastern

[Erik P Conard]

after having poured over this "Asian" bit...I guess you all now relaize that we have come a long ways...sure, in the 50s and before, many people were exculded because they were not "white, Christian, male." Most of the sororities were guilty of
this. No more. And I don't think TKE, Beta, DU, AKL, or Acacia ever had any exclusionary clauses, race-wise...we are proud of that, and rushes in the '50s were embarrassing to some houses
who had to ask rushees if they were "white christians."
TKE had a plethora of Asians in chapters in the 50s and while I am a Kansan, and few Asians there, we always had a few foreign students, including asians...good ping pong players, too! LOL
There are so many asians and other so-called minorities in our
GLOs today that it is not even worth discussing. The emergence
of these groups, especially on the west cost, has brought us
diviseness again...that is too bad.
But most of us can pledge who we want, where we want and when we want. Yep, we have come a long way.
Finally, in TKE early days, in Alpha Chapter, about 1915 or so, we
had Asayo Fukuda...an esteemed Japanese, in our chapter. He went back to Japan and became an Admiral during World War II,
and unfortunately lost his life during the conflict. Many TKEs wept
over that, and an old, old Teke told me this in 1957.
While we have not yet put urinals in the Ole Miss sorority houses,
we still have a bit broader perspective than we used to!
And we are better for it! Erik P Conard, old Teke

[PM_Mama00]

On my campus our organizations are all mixed in. White, Asian, Indian, Arab, Black..... we don't have a problem on our campus with race.

[scoopage]

At UMass, three houses on our frat row are occupied by predominantly Asian groups (Lambda Phi Epsilon, Pi Delta Psi, Sigma Psi Zeta). Since having a University-recognized house seems to be a thing of NPC/IFC groups, I think this change is awesome!

[norcalchick]

at ucsc, there are two asian interest fraternities, Pi Alpha Phi and Lambda Phi Epsilon. and there are two asian interest sororities, Sigma Omicron Pi and alpha Kappa Delta Phi. i THINK LPhiE has won greek week for the past two years! and in each of these glos, there are people of different nationalities. two of my sis' (one is white and one is mexican) are lil sis' to LPhiE. my brother was in PAPhi and we're half white and half philipino

[chideltjen]

Originally posted by star02
to OohTeenyWahine
alpha kappa delta phi IS NOT the only national asian interest sorority.. there are many many more, including my baby, Delta Phi Lambda (check us out at www.deltaphilambda.com)

I've seen your website before and always loved the splash page you girls have there. Now I remember what your org is called (cuz I have looked for it once or twice but couldn't remember who you all were...)

Cali seems pretty liberal. I know we have quite a few multi cultural orgs as well as asian interest orgs on our campus. Some are local and a couple of them have many chapters.

[CASIGKAP]

There are two Asian girls in my sorority, one girl from India (she is studying abroad), one African-American, lots of Caucasian girls, many girls of Latin descent or from Latin countries and every lady is a Sigma Kappa. We may not always get along (aint that the truth) but these ladies are always there for each other.

[Rio_Kohitsuji]

At one time in my sorority's history we were around 95% Japanese That's when Rio had a branch in Japan so they basically "traded" students for a few years.

At my boyfriends chapter, they have 1 Japanese (his roomie), 1 Korean, 1 Chinese who are all active.

I know that when the Japan branch was active almost every GLO on campus had a large portion of their organization were Japanese.

Love from the Yuki branch, Kayla

[jefflee108]

I go to Stanford and all of the houses are fairly integrated, with at least one or two East Asians in each one (and I believe considerably more of South Asian heritage). Our chapters are pretty independent-minded and it's popular to say that most of them operate almost inverse to their national or regional reputations. Kappa Alpha Order, for example, is one of the most integrated fraternities (though with a heavy concentration of water polo and volleyball players) and some of its members take pride in being the "anti-fraternity" type (which, for a school that is fairly anti-Greek, has made KA very popular).

Still, for a school that is roughly a fifth Asian, we're not entirely there yet. The one Asian fraternity (LPhiE) and two Asian sororities (aKDPhi/SYZ) aggressively recruit in the Asian circles, and the community as a whole does not mingle with the traditional (NIC/NPC) Greek scene. In fact, as far as minorities go, I would dare say that East Asians are the least represented in the ten traditional houses we have on campus.

Phi Kappa Psi/Sigma Nu and Delta Delta Delta/Chi Omega have the majority of the Asian-Americans who do decide to enter the traditional Greek system. This year there are quite a few Asians pledging everywhere, including the more conservative houses (i.e. SAE/Theta) so there's definitely been an upswing since my freshman year. I think the base problem is getting people to rush: once we get more Asian-Americans into the scene, especially in Panhellenic recruitment, it'll work out from there.


-Jeff L.