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[Goofalo]

What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity

“Asian-­American’’ is a mostly meaningless term. Nobody grows up speaking Asian-­American, nobody sits down to Asian-­American food with their Asian-­American parents and nobody goes on pilgrimages back to their motherland of Asian-­America. Michael Deng and his fraternity brothers were from Chinese families and grew up in Queens, and they have nothing in common with me — someone who was born in Korea and grew up in Boston and North Carolina. We share stereotypes, mostly — tiger moms, music lessons and the unexamined march toward success, however it’s defined. My Korean upbringing, I’ve found, has more in common with that of the children of Jewish and West African immigrants than that of the Chinese and Japanese in the United States — with whom I share only the anxiety that if one of us is put up against the wall, the other will most likely be standing next to him.

Discrimination is what really binds Asian-­Americans together.

TRUTH

The children of the hundreds of thousands of Asian immigrants who flooded into the country after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 had grown up. Between 1976 and 2008, the number of Asian-­Americans enrolled in four-year colleges increased sixfold. Many of these young men and women had graduated from the same magnet schools, attended the same churches, studied together in the same test-prep classes, but their sense of Asian-­ness had never been explained to them, at least not in the codified language of the multicultural academy.

They found themselves at the center of a national debate on affirmative action. In the mid-’80s, students and professors began to accuse elite colleges like Brown, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, of using a quota system to limit the number of Asian-­American students. As colleges responded with denials, a movement began on campuses to demand the creation of more Asian-­American-­studies programs and Asian-­American clubs, student organizations, social clubs and, eventually, fraternities. The debate remains open and tense. In 2014, a group that opposes affirmative action sued Harvard, accusing it of discriminating against Asian-­Americans in its admissions process. That suit, which is still unsettled, inspired a coalition of 64 Asian-­American groups to file a complaint against the university the following year. Both cases received renewed attention this month when the publication of a Department of Justice memorandum led to the disclosure of the agency’s plans to investigate the 2015 complaint.

Asians are the loneliest Americans. The collective political consciousness of the ’80s has been replaced by the quiet, unaddressed isolation that comes with knowing that you can be born in this country, excel in its schools and find a comfortable place in its economy and still feel no stake in the national conversation. The current vision of solidarity among Asian-­Americans is cartoonish and blurry and relegated to conversations at family picnics, in drunken exchanges over food that reminds everyone at the table of how their mom used to make it. Everything else is the confusion of never knowing what side to choose because choosing our own side has so rarely been an option. Asian pride is a laughable concept to most Americans. Racist incidents pass without prompting any real outcry, and claims of racism are quickly dismissed. A common past can be accessed only through dusty, dug-up things: the murder of Vincent Chin, Korematsu v. United States, the Bataan Death March and the illusion that we are going through all these things together. The Asian-­American fraternity is not much more than a clumsy step toward finding an identity in a country where there are no more reference points for how we should act, how we should think about ourselves. But in its honest confrontation with being Asian and its refusal to fall into familiar silence, it can also be seen as a statement of self-­worth. These young men, in their doomed way, were trying to amend the American dream that had brought their parents to this country with one caveat:

I will succeed, they say. But not without my brothers!

 

[WrenchNinja]

Interesting article

This caught my eye

‘‘The fraternity says they are about raising awareness of Asian-­Americans, but it’s all [expletive],’’ he says. ‘‘It’s really just about partying and feeling like you belong to something.’’

 

[Goofalo]

Interesting article

This caught my eye

I think that's any fraternity on a certain level.

Also, I think its important to note, places that can support multiple Asian-American Greek organizations, are going to a decent Asian-American population. The sense of "isolation" and "awareness" for that that matter are going to be very different than say University of Oklahoma as an example. The Asian-American experience in less population dense areas is going to be very different, than say folks who grew up in SoCal or NYC.

 

[FinaruDensetsu]

I think that's any fraternity on a certain level.

Also, I think its important to note, places that can support multiple Asian-American Greek organizations, are going to a decent Asian-American population. The sense of "isolation" and "awareness" for that that matter are going to be very different than say University of Oklahoma as an example. The Asian-American experience in less population dense areas is going to be very different, than say folks who grew up in SoCal or NYC.

Yup while attending UCLA I was among fellow Asian Americans as much as white Americans if not more so.

 

[MogCakes]

I am a bit lost on the point of the article. It is about wanting to belong, right? With the tragic circumstances that lead to Deng's death. But it is framed in the context of a fraternity, one of the worst types of institutions that indoctrinates dudes into these abusive hazing rituals and shit. I feel that this is to the detriment of the article's intent.

 

[Cels]

National Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Panhellenic Association is a mouthful.

this Glass Ceiling initiation ritual sounds stupid as hell, but i wasn't a frat guy.

‘Put everything away.'' Lai told a detective at the hospital that he had been in contact with a brother at the national fraternity; texts on Lai's phone showed that Andy Meng encouraged the hiding of fraternity items.

lul

Kwan called me at home in Brooklyn. He said he had heard that an Asian writer was going to write about the case from an Asian perspective. I told him that I was, indeed, an Asian writer. He paused and asked if I knew someone who could help him get his story out in a way that wasn't biased against Asians. I told him that I'd be happy to talk to him, but I wanted to be clear: I wasn't working on an article whose aim was to exonerate him and his brothers, and he should talk to his lawyer before calling me back. Over the past year, I've found myself wondering what exactly Kwan might have meant by an ‘‘Asian perspective.''

yeah, i wonder too. did Kwan forget that Deng was also Asian?

 

[Jag]

I am a bit lost on the point of the article. It is about wanting to belong, right? With the tragic circumstances that lead to Deng's death. But it is framed in the context of a fraternity, one of the worst types of institutions that indoctrinates dudes into these abusive hazing rituals and shit. I feel that this is to the detriment of the article's intent.

I was coming to post a similar thought. At the very least, it did shine some light on the plight of Asian-Americans that I probably would not have realized and I grew up in those same areas they did.

The Glass Ceiling initially sounded benign for a frat ritual, but the damage he suffered sounds like it was taken to an abusive level. I actually liked the third part how he has to ask his brothers to stand with him. But I guess the point was probably lost in the drunken hazing that pervades most fraternity rituals. At least what I remember from them.

 

[nocturnalis]

As a Black person in LA County, I had a lot of Asian-American friends. However, there was a difference in how they treated me compared to other friends that tended to erode friendships over time.

 

[tearsintherain]

Yeah as the dad of 3 asian american kids its really hard to understand the point of the article. Most people feel alienated and lonely in their life. Everyone thinks the jock football player with the cheerleader girlfriend is the happiest person in the world in high school but they usually will have all sorts if issues as well. Thats just part of growing up. Yes, there are definitely some people who have it orders of magnitude worse than others - the darker your skin color, the more isolated and adrift you are going to feel - but most people manage to make friends, connections, and communities. Some never do and that is tragic but nowadays we tend to create virtual communities based on interests, not just race and ethnicity.

My wife's half asian and she always thought because I was white I had a perfect childhood and fit right in and everything is great. Nah, I had my share of problems too just like she did. Sure, being the only person in your school that is a different color is way worse than being a bullied nerd but end of the day the kid in China or Nairobi who is growing up with 100% of his classmates looking very similar also faces a million problems, its just part of life in how you deal with it and move on.

Joining a frat/sorority though is one of the worst things imo you can do, the entire point I always felt of college was transitioning from the "factory" of high school where everyone tries desperately to be like each other to a place where you are free to be unique and different and figure out by yourself what makes you tick. Frats are the antithesis of that.

 

[Jag]

Joining a frat/sorority though is one of the worst things imo you can do, the entire point I always felt of college was transitioning from the "factory" of high school where everyone tries desperately to be like each other to a place where you are free to be unique and different and figure out by yourself what makes you tick. Frats are the antithesis of that.

It was the complete opposite for me. I was a quiet, shy, nerdy kid. I hated the concept of frats, but the kids I met first in college were joining a frat and eventually I joined with them. It totally took me out of my shell, the guys took me under their wing and I gained confidence and lifelong friends. I'm still that same kid at my core, but that experience did more for my self confidence than anything else and really helped me succeed in life.

 

[SomTervo]

This is an eye opener, great article.

 

[Gully State]

I never joined a frat but I had plenty of friends in college who did and it really did help them get out of their shell.

 

[Goofalo]

I think fraternities and sororities can be fine. I can see how they are great alternatives to other types of student organizations. For the most part the POC groups on my campus were very political in nature. Others were more geared towards the foreign students. So maybe you just wanna hang out with a group of people where you feel you share a background with and you don't have to explain what's in your fridge.

But like I said before, on campuses with a large number of Asian-American students they really aren't going to be all that different from any other Greek organization. And I'm going to excluded African-American fraternities and sororities from that generalization, because they have their own distinct history and traditions that are very separate from your typical fraternities and sororities.

The fraternity in question, they have a colony at my alma mater. I've met them, not impressed with them at all. But they're kids and they are taking it upon themselves to do something, which I can't hate. And I don't blame them for starting a colony. Gets tiring being upset with things all the time.

 

[Kill3r7]

So basically joining a frat. Folks join because they want to fit in and belong to a group. The parties, booze, drugs and ease of getting laid are the shiny wrapper on a shit package. Not trying to say frats are worthless but they undeniably bring out the worse out of the male nature, at least during hell week.