Intertribal Life Newspaper -

Tempe, Arizona-When Talia Fuentes fills out the race/ethnicity portion of the United States Census, she checks three boxes: Hispanic, Native American, and Caucasian. But up until 2000, Fuentes, and others like her, would have only been able to check one box.

According to the U.S. Census, in the year 2000 about 6.8 million Americans marked two or more races, and by 2010, that number increased by a third, up to roughly 9 million.

Fuentes, 32, grew up in Mesa, in a primarily white neighborhood, with a Hispanic father and a biracial mother with a Native American and white background. She said h...