Nov. 1 issue - Juan de Los Santos
says he and his fraternity brothers at New
Jersey's Ramapo College "wanted to have
fun tonight more than anything else."
But their routine of synchronized claps and
stomps helped Lambda Sigma Upsilon—"Latinos
Siempre Unidos" ("Latinos Always
United")—beat out other frats to
win $1,000 at the school's Greek step show.
Or maybe it was their insouciant T shirts,
which read WE DIDN'T PRACTICE.
As more Latino students enter college—about
1.7 million in 2002—Latino Greeks are
becoming a larger presence on campus. Jeffrey
Vargas of the National Association of Latino
Fraternal Organizations estimates that as
many as 30,000 Latino students and graduates
are Greeks, a fourfold increase since the
mid-'90s. The groups provide moral support
and useful academic scuttlebutt—crucial,
since the retention rate among Latino students
is lower than that of the overall college
population. "They can say, 'Yo, man,
don't take this professor'," says David
Ortiz, Baylor University diversity specialist
and member of Omega Delta Phi. And Latino
Greeks can make connections that last far
into the future. "If you're going to
spend $100,000 on your education," says
Vargas, "that is priceless later."
At some campuses, established
black fraternities, the first of them founded
in 1906, have raised their eyebrows at the
Latino Greeks' adopting such black traditions
as stepping. But as minorities on many campuses,
black and Latino Greeks more often connect,
says Ortiz, as Latino Greeks "look toward
black Greeks for a nod of acceptance."
On the campus at large, that
feeling of belonging can be harder to come
by. "It's very rare that mainstream Greeks
interact with culturally based Greeks,"
says Frank Gonzalez, president of the University
of Texas at Austin's United Greek Council.
UT administrators are trying to bridge that
gap this semester with a "Greek think
tank" to spur communication.
Meanwhile Latino Greeks work
to raise their profile. At Columbia, one sorority
hosts lectures on Latinas' body image; another,
at USC, holds college-application workshops
for local high-school students. Sometimes,
it's simply a matter of having fun. At Ramapo's
step show, members of one Latino fraternity
chanted, "They took my hand / And said,
'Understand / You're a brother like no other
/ You're a Lambda man'." It's not the
"Whiffenpoof Song," but someday
it's going to make aging brothers nostalgic
for their college years.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
