Beware of Hazing

Immigrants start at the bottom of the totem pole, as do pledges. Pledges and immigrants are seen as the ones with the least status, and their duties are assigned accordingly. Pledges are responsible for party clean ups, driving drunk teens to and fro parties, and remain constantly on-call for the other undesired tasks. Immigrants are found with the unfavorable jobs that are dangerous and low paying, and they are even restricted from attending public schools and certain health care, as a result from Proposition 187. Both parties are sold into this idea that what they received at the end will be worth the horrible treatment that they endure at the beginning.

Since the late 1900s, immigration regulation has increased, and the central argument that bars new migrants into the country is focused around arguments of economic insecurity and balanced-budget conservatism. As a result, nativism has grown among locals and strengthened the desire for more restrictions on immigration.

The anti-immigration responses have taken different forms throughout the history of Industrial America, such as hostility towards the “inferior” immigrants who transformed labor into the “sweatshop system” or the fear of the “un-American” immigrants flowing into the country. During World War I, these “hyphenated-Americans” were required to take classes to create “an understanding and love for America” as quoted in Hill 1919:630 (Calavita, 288).

Pledges have similar experiences, as the introduction to the fraternity requires an element of membership education. A pledge will then prove their alliance to the group by completing ridiculous, sometimes derogatory tasks. Both groups are joining an already, firmly established collection of people who don’t always know how to accept newcomers. It takes adjusting and regulation, which can sometimes be driven by fear on both sides, which makes a dangerous combination with power or desperation.