EVANSTON — The Latin Kings, an international organized crime gang based in Chicago, have been recruiting more students at Northwestern than the religion of Christianity.

“We’ve been really happy with our numbers this year,” said Latin Kings spokesman Seiji Buscemi, who graduated from the School of Communications in 2008 and the Kellogg School of Business in 2010. “I think that we’ve found the right balance that allows us to put effort into recruitment without coming off as ‘forceful’ or ‘pushy,’ which were some of the complaints we received in past years. This year, we tried a radically new method of putting up passive advertising while integrating ourselves into the community, and we’ve seen really good results.”

Approximately twenty students from Northwestern University have joined the Latin Kings since the beginning of the current academic year. Only three students have been recruited to Christianity during the past three academic years.

Buscemi offered insight into the recruiting problems of Christianity on the Northwestern campus. “As a Buddhist, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not terribly familiar with the tenets of Christianity. However, in recruitment one has to consider that there’s no such thing as a clean slate; the first challenge is overcoming the negative stereotypes that your potential recruit has about your organization.”

Buscemi explained that Christian groups might need to reconcile a stereotype of “pushiness” that likely stems from stopping people who are “just trying to walk down Sheridan,” or “watch Game of Thrones in peace” in their dorm rooms. “There’s a stereotype that a Latin King has to be Hispanic,” Buscemi continued, “but that just isn’t the case. I myself was accepted into the Kings as a proud Native American man. The first message that your organization needs to send is the one which is the opposite of any negative popular consensus about your organization.”

Northwestern CRU released a press statement in response to Buscemi’s advice. The statement read, “While we may be recruiting fewer members than the Latin Kings, we’re proud to only have the cream of the crop. All of our members are more committed to CRU, more willing to die for CRU, and more willing to kill for CRU than any member of the Latin Kings, who are going to be in big trouble once Professor Silverman’s Jewish Disciples gang gets its tribesmanship up.”