She comments that he doesn't deny all the people in his blood and genes and that he passes it all on (393). She's grateful that millions more Americans are checking more than a single box now. Although Rhodes counts herself as African American in the census, she knows that doesn't limit her bloodline. Rodriguez feels differently about the racial category. He says that while he was in college Richard Nixon instructed the Office of Management and Budget to come up with the five major racial groups in the United States (142). He goes on to say that no one will ever meet a Hispanic because it is a gringo gimmick and that in Latin America there are Chileans, Mexicans or Peruvians but no Hispanics (142). Rodriguez is saying that Hispanic describes the way that person lives and their culture and he even coined Hispanic as an ethnic term. Rhodes and Rodriguez both show how people now choose to identify themselves. Although they have learned to identify themselves by their skin color, they both know there is more to them than that. America is a changing country, where people of mixed color are becoming more and more common. Assimilation happens everywhere and cannot be avoided. Culture and race are not the same thing, and the way some choose to identify is becoming very different. America will become more and more diverse, and classifying each person racially will only preserve the notion of being