What are the conventional notions of race? What is the nature of ethnicity? How would you distinguish between race and ethnicity? How does race or ethnicity play a role in society today? While race and ethnicity are commonly mistake to be interchangeable--since both lend to defining one’s heritage--there is a difference between race and ethnicity: race is based on physical attributes and ethnicity is socially constructed based on ancestry. This is because in the US alone, there are over 9-million people defined by mixed race who are initially classified by their skin color instead of their ancestry; studies show that genetic variation in the human population is extremely small, hence race is only skin-deep; and ethnicity is a socially constructed tool used to maximize socioeconomic rewards and promote cultural origins. First, there is a difference between race and ethnicity: race is based on physical attributes and ethnicity is socially constructed based on ancestry. In the 2010 census, the US alone had over 9 million people who defined themselves as mixed race--however, they are initially classified by the color of their skin, instead of their ancestry. Mixed races have become more common among Americans as a result of interracial breeding, and these people born of mixed race have identities that are largely determined by society. As discussed by Professor Philip Q. Yang in Theories of Ethnicity, “society makes written or unwritten rules to assign mixed-race people to a particular category.” Several commonly used categorization rules are: to use the race of one parent (usually the mother), use the race of the non-white parent, the use of blood quantum (where minimums are placed if you can define yourself a specific race), and most commonly, use of physical appearance. As said by Professor Joseph Graves Jr. in his interview: “the average person on the street thinks that race consists of differences in physical appearance...from looking at a person’s physical appearance, they can find out or know more subtle things about them.” Unfortunately, this is how the government and Census workers view race. A great example of this is Graves’ personal story he had shared when a Census worker came to his home and assumed the race of his own family (as black), because he hims