Writer’s note: This is my finalized opinion on the topic. No further articles will be posted. Please enjoy my final, more concisely written, expository post however you wish, but not as an attack or an offense on the organization. Opinions are welcome, but expletives are not.
Introduction
Socialization is an important skill and an unavoidable consequence of being a functioning human being in a complex social world. Two pivotal parts of our lives – toddler age and adolescence, respectively – are so vital to our social development precisely because they are periods of rapid development in social skills and mental development that creates self-consciousness. As a middle school student, I caught wind of a collective noun called “social clubs”. Although most local high schoolers are familiar with the clubs existence, few – including I – had a comprehensive or objective idea as to what they actually are.
Hi-Ys and Tri-Hi-Ys – a brief history
"Social clubs”, formally known as Tri-Hi-Y clubs, are the division of the YMCA that serves the interests of teenagers across America. For example, Tri-Hi-Ys can be respectable student government programs and community involvement clubs. Here, I detail operations of social clubs in the West San Gabriel Valley area (hereafter abbreviated WSGV) of Southern California, which are unique to the immediate area. The development and original intent of Tri-Hi-Ys should not be understood without a general idea of the YMCA itself.
As its expanded name suggests, the Young Man’s Christian Association was founded upon “Judeo-Christian” values – the same values that a very religious America has prided itself on. The mission of the YMCA is “To put Christian principles in to practice through programs that build healthy sprit, mind and body for all.” Religion is generally unattractive to the increasingly secular adolescent, but Tri-Hi-Ys make light of religious values through social bonding, even though it eradicates any connection between faith and the club itself.
Girls-only clubs under peculiar names such as Talondi (many clubs use local, yet foreign languages such as Hawaiian and Native American tongues in their naming) established themselves in the 1950s and 60s under the central goal of community service. Hi-Ys, the male counterpart to the Tri-Hi-Y, began forming roughly 20 years later. Councils and boards existed to govern all clubs in all the schools with Tri-Hi-Y club programs in the area.
The relocation of the local YMCA resulted in a radical transition in administration. A lack of oversight in the transitory process, a longtime Mark Keppel High School alumnus and Tri-Hi-Y club founder postulates, resulted in Definition No.2 of oversight (“inadvertent omission or error”) and created a vacuum in administrative authority. With the business of each Y club left to students, they perverted club goals on a new path that focused on inclusive social interaction and bonding rather than community service; giving rise to the nickname “social clubs.” The transition of administration, surprisingly, did not disintegrate the Tri-Hi-Y club; a change in protocol, combined with the retention of core ideologies, allowed Y clubs to thrive.
Evolution of the club
Social clubs were able to become one of the most locally revered, yet mysterious social institutions for teenagers – an institution for socialization. Volunteerism was sacrificed for more social cohesiveness, which attempted to address the psychological need for affiliation among teenagers often stressed by school, work, family, and relationships. The aura of exclusivity within clubs also generates a feeling of identity, although it may be more collective than individual, superficial than actual.
Social clubs actually consist of three main components, titled “educationals”,“socials”, and “services.” Although the tasks accomplished during the different activities are different, abundant amounts of social networking between members and with other clubs occur at all the events. The opportunity to conduct community service – although there is little left – and the chance of being a member of what is essentially a clique make joining a club much more lucrative to the adolescent undergoing what Eric Erikson defines as the identity vs. role confusion crisis.
Interest
The inclusive nature of these teen Y clubs incites the interest of freshmen and even the incoming students (8th graders) that have all expectations and no realities of high school. Indeed, because individuals in clubs see a drastic increase in friends and school popularity, club membership is attractive to the conforming student. This interest may come from the notion that it is an opportunity to establish a self-identity in relation to others. This chance, while unconsciously accepted, is highly attractive. Forming an identity is liberation of another kind, freeing the student of the need to change his or her demeanor on a regular basis until he or she is satisfied. Interestingly, even Erikson noted himself that association with negative groups, such as cults or fanatics could actually harm the fragile developing ego. Thus, clubs inadvertently prey on adolescent impulse.
Acquaintances occur throughout the month of March, a clever setting because March is a month with a minimal amount of school holidays to preoccupy students, a contrast to the maximum amount of homework students face from upcoming standardized testing season. As a result, bored students are more easily compelled to take an interest for social clubs during this time. Two individuals who I interviewed “tried out” and “got in” the same club, simply out of this boredom.
There is inevitable competition, of course, to acquire something that few have, even if the rewards – popularity in particular – may be all but superficial. Social club membership is restrictive, as it maintains an atmosphere where members are “fictive kin”. Thus, competition must be established, and ‘tryouts’ do exactly that.
Initiation
The ‘acquaintance’ is the first stage for the popularity-seeking student. Each club has several acquaintances and there is a minimum number that must be attended for membership. The “First Acquaintance” is typically a simple and fun “ice-breaker” activity that maintains or creates greater interest in the social club. Current members carrying out the activities put on their best impressions through leading by example. By perpetuating the ideal social role of the adolescent male or female, current club members establish themselves as superior in the club hierarchy, and give interested members the title of ‘prospects.’ One member noted that this title is similar of that given to soldiers being trained in the military, implying that there is a degree of resocialization in the tryout process. With the playing field slanted, members create ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ assignments (hereafter the ‘Sibling System’) between them and the Prospects.
As a Prospect, one is compelled to succumb to the ‘requests’ (read: commands) of their Sibling. These requests can be quite taxing and can range from performing a trivial, bewildering task to buying snacks for the Sibling. Along with such petty tasks, Prospects are required to participate in grueling assessments of their mental and physical limits, all of which equate to hazing. Conducting these tasks, hypothetically, allows the Prospect to build rapport with the members and solidify relations between the two parties. The hazing process is repeated in greater severity to cut down the number of prospects to a manageable amount.
Although current members and Prospects not are sworn under a formal oath to speak nothing of detail regarding hazing, most abide by instructions such as “what happens here stays here” in fear of some arbitrary consequence. Social clubs demonstrate that with adequate peer pressure and pressure from the environment, a teenager can keep a secret as well as the Central Intelligence Agency can.
Inclusion
New club members done with Tryouts and Acquaintances face a new array of challenges, most of them more demanding than simply the costs of club-themed clothing and YMCA facility membership. Maintaining social identity and social status is the primary goal of the social club member, as group conformity within clubs is extremely strong. Joining a social club perpetuates what I have titled the more general “elite clique phenomenon.” In high school cliques, maintaining social status is every student’s biggest goal, as they are scrutinized perpetually. Appearance becomes so much more important. Self-image maintenance is challenging and tends to cause personality changes to the club member. Such personality change is usually incited by an exponential increase in high school “drama,” an emotional output of impulsive and hormonal adolescents.
Heavily portrayed in popular media, cliques indeed have a glaring presence of high school culture. How cliques assume themselves around America and the world varies. In the WSGV, this elite clique happens to assume itself within a recognized extracurricular organization.
The demographics of the WSGV help justify why the clique is embedded in the Y club. The WSGV’s population is primarily composed of Asians. Clubs are sometimes regarded as ‘Asian clubs’,‘Hispanic clubs’, or ‘mixed clubs’, which are used to point out the predominant demographic of a particular social club. The Asian culture, in particular, tends to promote passive-aggressiveness, or at least, defers explicit actions in lieu of a more subtle approach. This shows in adolescents as well. Asians are also more self-conscious of their ‘face’ (a direct translation of ‘reputation’ or ‘impression’) than other ethnicities are. These teenagers are able to comfortably conduct socially unacceptable tasks under the guise of the Y club, subsequently avoiding the loss of face and gaining a sense of legitimacy in their actions.
Social clubs, now
To compare the activities with a street gang is compelling, but fallacious. While the social club exists for social cohesion, much like that of a gang, gangs are also formed to defend oneself from the corrupted, dangerous realm of inner-city urban life. Social clubs exist solely for the purpose of adolescent values of social cohesion and community service, making them much more ‘innocent’ than street gangs. Illegitimate activities that occur are technically independent from the club itself; they are simply carried out by club members, and nothing more.
I spoke to numerous classmates and peers and eavesdropped on many more conversations to gather information about Hi-Y and Tri-Hi-Y clubs. The current consensus among social club members themselves is that the clubs are ailing and may even disappear entirely. The most prominent reasoning for this opinion comes in light of an incident which occurred spring 2011, in which a Prospect who was undergoing hazing for a female club told her parents, who subsequently notified the YMCA in a formal complaint. Because the Y was unaware that such activities occurred regularly in club, they immediately disbanded the clubs and severed relations. This has rendered these clubs to be nothing but elite cliques, which I postulated long before the disbanding occurred. One of the members in the club primarily at fault for the disbanding is even blunter on the issue: “technically, we’re gangs.”
The loss of prestige of club membership from the Y’s disassociation indeed reduces social clubs to mere gangs; facilitating membership and fees in will become exceptionally difficult. Coupled with the apathetic opinions of current members, clubs seem to have a bleak future – or none at all. One friend explained that he would stay in his club despite his total lack of interest for his membership, because it would make no difference if he left. The loss of incentive for individuals to be join a social club – after all, you can make your own friends on your own – will inevitably mark the end of over fifty years of controversial history. But to observe the rise and fall of the social club from a sociological perspective, it will indefinitely live on under some different shape or form in order to satisfy the adolescent desire to socialize and conform to their peers.
SAT Vocabulary:
1. Eradicate – v. to destroy thoroughly
2. Inadvertent – adj. accidental
3. Perverted – adj. corrupted or distorted from its original course
4. Protocol – n. declaration or memo of agreement; code requiring strict adherence
5. Retention – n. to keep something within one’s power/possession
6. Resocialization – n. in sociology, to radically change one’s personality by controlling the environment; in context, I do not use this in the strictest sense, as resocialization is usually used to describe penitentiary life or military training
7. Arbitrary – adj. based on random choice or personal whim rather than logic or reasoning
8. Incite – v. to rouse to a particular action
9. Ailing – adj. in poor health
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