Phi Iota Alpha (), established on December 26, 1931, is the oldest active Latino fraternity in the mainland United States,babai and works to motivate people, develop leaders, and create innovative ways to unite the Latino community. The organization has roots that stem back to the late 19th century to the second intercollegiate Latin American fraternity, and one of the first Latin American student organization in the United States. The brotherhood is composed of undergraduate, graduate, and professional men committed towards the empowerment of the Latin American community by providing intensive social and cultural programs and activities geared towards the appreciation, promotion and preservation of Latin American culture.
Membership in Phi Iota Alpha is open to all men regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin. Phi Iota Alpha's membership includes prominent educators, politicians, businessmen, and four former presidents of Latin American countries. Phi Iota Alpha utilizes motifs from the Pan-American revolutionary period and uses images and colors depicting the time of Latin American revolutionaries and thinkers to represent the organization.
History
Origins
The origins of Phi Iota Alpha are at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, New York, on November 20, 1898. A group of a seven Latin American students organized the Union Hispano Americana (UHA) as a cultural and intellectual secret society based on the ideology of Pan-Americanism in attempt to promote further unity amongst the Latin student body that comprised nearly a dozen individuals in Fall 1899. These founders were Joaquin Maria Buenaventura, Nicolas De La Cava (of Delta Tau Delta), Jorge Adelberto Guirola (of Theta Xi), Alfredo LeBlanc, Luis Gonzaga Morphy (of Theta Xi), Pedro Eugenio Raygada, and Alfredo Gregorio Vergara (of Theta Xi). The founding members were all international students originally from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, and Peru. Morphy served as the first President of the organization and would play an essential role in the organization throughout its initial years.
The immediate goal of the UHA was to provide a cultural environment for students of Latin America and Spain. The UHA was the first association of Latin American students ever founded in the United States. The UHA expanded to several colleges and universities in the United States; however, due to the secrecy imposed upon its members, not many records were kept.
The expansion and growth of the UHA were based on compromise and the ultimate need for similar organizations to unify and become more powerful. In the Northeastern Province of the United States, a group of Latin American students decided to organize a cultural and intellectual fraternity; as a result Pi Delta Phi () fraternity was founded at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1916 by Nemesio Alvare y Gomez, Segundo Heliodoro Ayala, Rodolfo Lucio Fonseca, Eduardo Germain, Viviano Llano Valdés, Marcial Ernesto Martínez Vilches, Roberto José Ottonello, José Augusto Padilla, Luciano Atilio Preloran, Enrique Rivero Monasterio, and Antonio Helier Rodriguez y Cintra. Shortly after its foundation, Pi Delta Phi initiated a search to expand to other colleges and universities where they became aware of the existence of other similar organizations.
Consolidation Pi Delta Phi established communications with Phi Lambda Alpha () fraternity, which had been recently founded in 1920 by Enrique Munguia Benitez, Luis Obispo Benoist, Horacio Peter Gabriel Madero, Raul Ramirez, Alfonso Samper, Abel Santos, Jesus Elias Sasaeta, Santiago Sompre, Gustavo Stahl, Juan Valenzuela, and Douglas Weatherston, in the Western Coast of the United States, at the University of California, Berkeley. After some communication, these two organizations realized the existence of a non-Greek letter secret society, the Union Hispano Americana (UHA). As a result of intensive correspondence and various interviews, the three organizations merged. In their merger agreement, the three organizations adopted the name of Phi Lambda Alpha fraternity, with the distinctive emblem & constitution of Pi Delta Phi, and the goals and motto of the UHA. This new union was formalized on June 11, 1921, in the City of New York.
After Phi Lambda Alpha was organized, other societies joined it: the "Club Latino-Americano" founded in 1919 at Colorado School of Mines; the "Federación Latino-Americana" founded in 1926 at Columbia University which joined in 1928; the "Club Hispania" founded in 1929 of Cornell University which joined in 1931; the "Club Hispano-Americano" founded in 1921 at (then) Tri-State College in Angola, Indiana which joined in 1929 and the Alfa Tenoxtitlan Militant chapter founded in 1929 made up of members of the Phi Lambda Alpha in Mexico.
Meanwhile, another similar organization was under development in the Southeastern region of the United States. In 1904, an organization with similar goals as Phi Lambda Alpha was founded under the name Sociedad Hispano-Americana at Louisiana State University. In 1911, the society transformed itself into Sigma Iota and became the second intercollegiate Latin American–based fraternity in the United States. By 1928, Sigma Iota had lost many of its chapters and therefore sought to stabilize its operations by consolidating its chapters in the United States with a more stationary and well-rooted organization.
Phi Lambda Alpha was seeking to expand throughout the United States and to promote the ideology of Pan-Americanism. Sigma Iota fraternity was in search of revitalizing some of its defunct chapters. Thus both organizations complemented each other and began to work towards the creation of the fraternity now known as Phi Iota Alpha.
Establishment In December 1931 in Troy, New York, delegates from Phi Lambda Alpha and Sigma Iota assembled to form a unified fraternity to address the needs of Latin American Students in universities in the United States.
On December 26, 1931, the first day of a three-day convention, Phi Iota Alpha was born as both groups agreed to the merger. They resolved to unify under one name, one banner, one organization and one ideal. The next day of business was dedicated to preparing the details of revising the constitution and working on the creation of a shield to represent the newly formed national Latino brotherhood. On December 28, by the end of the three-day convention, the majority of the merger was completed. The last step in the merger was the ratification of some of the chapters of Sigma Iota that were not represented at the convention.
The fraternity was incorporated as a national organization on October 28, 1936, in the State of Louisiana, as Phi Iota Alpha Fraternity.
International expansion
After the unification of Sigma Iota and Phi Lambda Alpha, Phi Iota Alpha's goal was to expand on the national level and develop a plan for its existing and potential international possibilities. Phi Iota Alpha sponsored the 1932 convention in New York City to form the Union Latino Americana (ULA) with hopes of expanding its ideals internationally. The ULA was a Pan-American governing body of Latino fraternities that provided the framework for the implementation of Pan-American ideology. The ULA organized Latin America into 22 zones with each of the 21 Latin American countries constituting a zone, and Phi Iota Alpha representing the 22nd zone in the United States. By 1937, the ULA had several well-established and functional zones including the following: – Phi Iota Alpha in the United States – Phi Kappa Alpha in Cuba – Phi Sigma Alpha in Puerto Rico – Phi Tau Alpha in Mexico
In September 1938, the Phi Sigma Alpha zone decided to separate from the ULA and formed the Phi Sigma Alpha and Sigma Iota Alpha fraternities of Puerto Rico and Louisiana (both part of greater Sigma Fraternity union) which would also be composed of former members of Phi Iota Alpha. Twelve years later, Phi Tau Alpha has established itself as a local fraternity at the Juarez Institute in Mexico. As of 1955, Phi Iota Alpha had two international chapters designated Juarez (in Mexico) and Marti (in Cuba).
History: 1939–1983 The outbreak of World War II greatly hindered the growth of Phi Iota Alpha in the United States. After the war, the fraternity drafted and implemented a new expansion strategy. As a result, the post-war period saw positive internal growth for the fraternity. In the early 1950s, Phi Iota Alpha eradicated any remnant of its political agenda. With only a few chapters, the fraternity continued to pursue its mission. The fraternity was again incorporated as a national organization on January 9, 1953, when the Secretary of State of New York accepted the incorporation of Phi Iota Alpha fraternity.
The 1960s were very challenging years for Phi Iota Alpha. The effects of the Vietnam War and the '60s counter-culture created an anti-institutional atmosphere amongst many college students. In addition, this drastically reduced the enrollment of Latin American students in American universities. This in turn hindered potential membership to the organization. As a result, by 1968, after many years of struggle, the only active undergraduate chapters were at LSU and RPI. The chapter at RPI became inactive in 1973 with the graduation of its Secretary General. The Secretary-General took with him the chapter's official fraternity documents. By 1979, the last active brother from the chapter at LSU graduated, marking the closing of the undergraduate chapter at LSU.
From 1979 to 1983, the fraternity witnessed a period of inactivity only at the undergraduate level. Some efforts were made to re-establish Phi Iota Alpha at the undergraduate level, but these efforts were not successful. Throughout this period, the brothers continued to maintain communication and continued to accomplish the mission of the organization. The history, ideals, and goals of the fraternity never diminished; they simply did not have active undergraduate members to cultivate them. Phi Iota Alpha continued to exist with the many Alumni members and Alumni chapters as they continued to develop their professional lives mostly in Latin American countries and in the United States.
History: 1984–2000 In 1984, a group of male students at RPI, set upon learning about the fraternity that once existed on their campus, re-established Phi Iota Alpha. The 28 men involved in this effort were collectively dubbed "The Third Generation". They were Jose Amoedo, Alejandro Argimon, Abelardo Bal, Rick Bramley, Marc Cascio, Jose Cid, Daniel Cincunegui, Marc Claudio, Nelson Corchado, William Feliciano, George James, Udnauth "SHAM" Mathura, Joseph Matos, Williams Matos, Roberto Milan, Felipe Morales, Carlos Nieto, Victor Pagan, Carlos Pena, Miguel Perez, Ernesto Ramos, Roger Snook, William Suarez, Freddy Tamayo, Efrian Torres, Gilberto Torres, Andres Viera, and Daniel Villagomez.
The reactivated fraternity's Beta Chapter was established at Stony Brook University in 1987, becoming the first Latino Greek-letter organization recognized by the university. In 1990, however, for reasons that were not publicly disclosed, the fraternity expelled several members and suspended the formation of new member lines at the chapter from Fall 1990 through Fall 1996, while a select group of members remained in recognized status. Efforts to reactivate the chapter began in 1994 and continued over the next several years. The suspension was ultimately lifted in 1997, when the Beta Chapter was formally re-established through the absorption of the members of a local fraternity formally known as Balaam Mu Tau (BMT).