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This article focuses on a research that examines the extent race creates the boundaries of American national identity. An objective of this research was to identify commonalities that bind the nation together, and the ways in which they are implicated in race. Americans have varying interpretations on what binds them into a national community. Although respondents' meanings and attachments to the cultural stuff are sometimes contradictory and divergent, they still identify themselves as American. This research is focused on how whiteness is negotiated by different racial and ethnic groups. To explore this, fieldwork was conducted in the U.S. between July 2000 to August 2001. It was centered in a particular area along the California central coast. The research was designed to examine the implication of whiteness in taken-for-granted notions of American identity. In order to acquire data on how a sense of American-ness and racism may intertwine, the author decided it was necessary to be less than completely open about my intentions.