In college, Rodriguez was identified as a minority student by educators and administrators. At first, Rodriguez was fine with this, but then it started to bother him. He began to feel that, because he had become a serious student, he had transformed, and should no longer be viewed as a minority student.

Starting in 1967, Black American activists pushed for overturning racial boundaries in higher education. Soon, many other minorities joined the movement, including Latinos. As the movement expanded, it began to represent the middle classes, too. As a successful Hispanic graduate student with a promising career in education, Rodriguez felt pressure to become part of the leadership. However, Rodriguez was disturbed by how he benefitted from affirmative action. He believed that some minority recruits would be unprepared for the rigors of college, and that universities were even less prepared to help them succeed.

Within the Third World Student Movement, students who attended college experienced conflicted identities. They were a minority to the university, but they were not at home within their minority cultures. Professors felt pressured to diversify their curricula, and this led to the creation of programs like ethnic studies departments and “field work” to put students in minority settings.