On October 5, 2006, members of two fraternities and sororities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign threw a party with a “fiesta” theme. The party was dubbed the “Tacos and Tequila” party and portrayed Latinos using derogatory stereotypes, with students dressing up as janitors and wearing gardening gear. Soon, however, pictures of the party ended up on Facebook and sparked a firestorm of criticism on campus. It also brought a controversial issue to the forefront of the public eye: racism against minorities other than African-Americans.

Racism has often been presented as a black and white topic, a problem between Caucasians and African-Americans. Discrimination against other minorities is still prevalent on college campuses, however. It’s a different mindset, says Harrison Hsueh, president of the Asian American Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“I think it’s more or less the same, but people kind of look at it through different lenses. Certain minorities have been portrayed more in terms of their stereotypes, and it’s a little more brash when people are insensitive to certain minorities. When you’re being racist to an Asian-American, it doesn’t seem as harsh because there’s that whole ‘modern minority thing.’”

Some experiences on college campuses are the same for minorities, whether they’re black, Latino, Asian or Muslim.

“As a minority on a predominately white campus, you see things. You have to. You have to know where you are, who you’re surrounded by, what you say, because it all comes back, if you don’t know what’s going on,” says Liz Rodriguez, a member of the African-Latino Society at Ithaca College.

One of the major differences between racism against African-Americans and racism against other minorities is perception. Rodriguez feels that the long history of discrimination against African-Americans in the United States causes a different awareness of it.

“I think sometimes it’s seen as worse if it’s African-Americans because of what they’ve been through and how it keeps coming back with incidents like the nooses. And it’s so much in our society. We know so much about the civil rights movement, we barely hear about anything having to do with anyone else, like, other minorities. I think it’s a problem that people would just watch what they say around African-Americans, and not a Hispanic person. Because the thinking is that they haven’t been through much, what is their problem, why do they feel this way. When you look at Hispanic people, you think immigrants, and not anything else of it.”

Although Ramie Shalabi, president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of South Carolina, has not been a direct victim of blatant racism while at college, he acknowledges its existence.

“There’s still discrimination going on, unfortunately. Slurs have been made, mostly towards Muslim females who wear their scarves, because it’s clear that they’re different from everybody else. And our organization has received various hate mail over the past year or two years. I don’t think there’s any clear differences that you could really point out, I mean discrimination is discrimination one way or another.”

A form of subtle discrimination prevalent on college campuses is the practice of self-segregation, which can be viewed in both positive and negative light.

“There’s a pretty noticeable self-segregation in terms of the different ethnic communities in addition to Caucasians. I guess at one level it’s more of an unspoken sort of racism. It’s definitely more subtle. Since it’s so subtle it’s hard to make people change it because it’s hard to make people see it.”

Other types of racist parties similar to the Tacos and Tequila party at the University of Illinois have occurred on college campuses, including South of the Border parties at the University of Santa Clara and University of Delaware. The backlash from the University of Illinois party had very visible results, but it’s rare for these common parties to cause such controversy. “There were a lot of minorities who were upset, and there were a lot of groups that were specifically organized in reaction to the Tacos and Tequilas Party,” says Hsueh.

Recent world events can also make discrimination more pronounced for certain groups. After the Virginia Tech shooting, when South Korean Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people, minorities held their breath to find out the ethnicity of the suspect, in hopes that it would not be a person of their race.

“I think any kind of minority hopes that someone from their own ethnic background doesn’t do something really overt like at Virginia Tech, because when that does happen you’re subject to being targeted,” says Hsueh.