Empty as death and slow as pain The days went by on leaden feet; And parson’s week had come again As I walked down the little street. Without, the weary doves were calling, The sun burned on the banks of mud; Within, old maids were caterwauling A dismal tale of thorns and blood. I thought of all the church bells ringing In towns that Christian folks were in; I heard the godly maidens singing; I turned into the house of sin. The house of sin was dark and mean, With dying flowers round the doors; They spat the betel juice between The rotten bamboo of the floors. Why did I come, the woman cried So seldom to her bed of ease? When I was not, her spirit died And would I give her ten rupees. The weeks went by, and many a day That black-haired woman did implore Me as I hurried on my way To come more often than before. The days went by like dead leaves falling, And parson’s week came round again. Once more devout old maids were bawling Their ugly rhymes of death and pain. The woman waited for me there As down the little street I trod, And musing on her oily hair, I turned into the house of God.

Given these converging lines of research, we tested whetherfriendships with majority-group peers would buffer minoritystudents who are high in RS-race from feelings of alienation anddiscomfort in historically White university settings.

Givenresearch documenting the benefits of cross-group friend-ship for intergroup attitudes, we tested whether friend-ships with majority-group peers would attenuate theeffects of RS-race within these contexts

Zande, 1999), we report a study in which friendship was inducedbetween same- and cross-group dyads of Latinos/as and Whites.

Building on the experimental paradigm used by Wright andcolleagues (Wright et al., 1998, 2002, 2005; Wright & van der

Wright and his colleagues(see Wright, Aron, & Tropp, 2002; Wright, Brody, & Aron, 2005;Wright, Ropp, & Tropp, 1998; Wright & van der Zande, 1999)described research that provided initial evidence for the causaleffects of cross-group friendship on self-reported anxiety.

Even though interactions between members of different socialgroups are sometimes characterized by anxiety and threat (Blas-covich, Mendes, Hunter, Lickel, & Kowai-Bell, 2001; Mendes,Blascovich, Lickel, & Hunter, 2002; Stephan & Stephan, 1985,2000), a growing body of research suggests that cross-groupfriendship can attenuate such anxiety.

The authors induced cross-group friendship between Latinos/as and Whites to test the effects ofcross-group friendship on anxiety in intergroup contexts.

“Choosing My Name”