Whenever I tell people I am in a fraternity, someone always asks “What house are you in?” and I respond that I am in a multicultural fraternity and we do not have houses. The blank stares our community gets when we respond to that question are pretty common. A lot of students seem to not know that there are Greek organizations outside of Greek row.

Multicultural Greeks are one of the most visible parts of the multicultural student population at WSU. We have organizations for all kind of student backgrounds: Latinx, Asian-American Pacific Islander, Native American and an Aztec brotherhood. We also have four organizations that are local and were created here at WSU.

We are the only Greek council to have a non-Greek letter organization, La Hermandad de Oquichtli Macuilli Tonatiuh, which is our Aztec Brotherhood. Our organizations may be founded with a particular culture in mind, but they are open to any and all students that would be interested in joining. We even have a co-ed fraternity that was brought on campus only a couple of years ago and an interest group for a Native-American sorority.

The United Greek Association is made up of 16 of these organizations, one of the largest collection of multicultural Greeks in the nation. The United Greek Council is the governing body for UGA.

Our communities offer programming events and workshops on a variety of topics including alcohol and drug awareness, suicide prevention, hazing, mental illness, campus safety, managing finances, financial aid, cultural issues and social topics, to name a few. All these are open to the entire WSU community.

Our members also do a lot of community service. Our bylaws require our members to do at least 12 hours of volunteer work a semester, the highest in the entire Greek community. However, many of our members do between 30 and 40 hours.

Our organizations are a fantastic resource for multicultural students to get involved in their community and gain valuable knowledge and experience. Through programming, civic engagement and community collaboration, our members have helped with the push for change at WSU.

Each of our organizations put in a lot of work for their philanthropies and are holding multiple fundraisers year-round to support them. You will see our organizations in the CUB Spine or on the Glen Terrell Mall trying to raise funds. Our communities also volunteer and participate in fundraisers for the cultural conferences.

We are a diverse community of majors, ages and ethnicities. We may have various personal values, but we are still united as one community.

Multicultural Greek Recruitment Week starts Tuesday, Jan. 16, and I highly recommend all multicultural students attend our events. We are starting off with our UGC Showcase in the CUB Auditorium from 7 – 9 p.m. We hope to see you all there.