After the first year, Tasia and I both decided to go through the sorority recruitment process. Throughout this process, I talked to up to thirty girls in the span of three days. Many girls asked me different questions, and I knew there was a code of conduct in terms of revealing and concealing my stigma depending on who I was talking to, as well as if they asked me something directly related to being Jewish. For example, a girl asked what my favorite place to travel was, and I said Israel.
She seemed accepting, so I felt the need to show my authenticity of being Jewish as many Jews travel to what we look to as our holy land, it was real and genuine. In my other conversations, I was situation-conscious of the social scene I was in and who was around me, I knew I had to make a certain impression on these women. Once I joined Pi Beta Phi, I realized that I was playing a two-headed role because when I am with my Jewish friends I am a stigmatized person embracing my real identity, while here I play a normal person who is part of a sorority on campus. Being a part of a stereotypical “popular” group on campus means I am expected to express a specific social personality, these are norms aligning with one’s social identity that must be sustained by individuals who, in my case, joined a sorority.
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The first friend in the sorority I made told me she was Jewish as well. Aside from her, I had to maintain my techniques of information control on others in the sorority, as my stigma is discreditable, and it helps to manage my information. I had to navigate through in-group purification. For example, when everyone asked us what we do on Christmas eve, I had to notify my own conduct, while cleaning up the conduct of other stigmatized individuals like my new friend Lindsay to pass as normals. Being in a sorority with eighty-nine young women casts a shadow on individuals like myself. My stigma is a secret among the sorority; however, it is still known to like-minded individuals like Lindsay.
Now that I am in my fourth year and I am more confident in my Jewish identity, I have acted as a resident alien for all the other stigmatized individuals who have joined my sorority in the past years. I act as the voice of our stigmatized group, if anyone has something they want our chapter to know about, it goes through me. For example, during Holocaust education week I made an announcement at our weekly meetings about it and gained phantom acceptance from the chapter. This is a form of acceptance where the stigmatized appears to be accepted by the normals, and this acceptance is reciprocated back by the stigmatized individual, even if they are not truly accepted.
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