And I think that says something good about America: that the normal all american guy-Jake and-and the pretty all american girl-Rachel-belong to minorities-in fact to the ultimate and most persecuted minority on earth, like I was reading in Claudia Roden's 'the book of jewish food" (WHICH IS THE BEST COOKBOOK I OWN) that the all american national dishes (cheese cake and apple pie but especially cheese cake) were orginally jewish dishes, and bagels with salmon (america's favourite breakfast according to roden) and a lot of other jewish dishes have entered the American mainstream... symbolic of America's greater acceptance of this most unfairly persecuted minority) (sorry tangent-but does my point make sense that the all american jake belongs to a minority) Also the pathetic loser character (Tobias) is the only true WASP...
Funny thing as well: Cassie is black/african american/insert fashionable politicallly correct label of your choice, and statistically speaking is likely to be a baptist, pentecostal etc (or stereotypically speaking) now it could be that the authors didn't do the research and probably is, but perhaps it indicates that Cassie's family was originally from Louisiana/New Orleans/Baton Rouge before the Civil War, which could help in the creation of Cassie's surname.