Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Quilt of A Country Text
A Quilt of A Country Text
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Name: _________________________________________________ Period: _____ Date:__________
This is a nation founded on a conundrum, what Mario Annotation Space: (Write down anything
Cuomo has characterized as "community added to you feel may be important here; your
individualism." These two are our defining ideals; they are thoughts on a passage, unfamiliar
also in constant conflict. Historians today bemoan the vocabulary, meaningful
Annotation Space: (Write down anything the answer. What is the point of this splintered whole? What
you feel may be important here; your is the point of a nation in which Arab cabbies chauffeur
thoughts on a passage, unfamiliar Jewish passengers through the streets of New York--and in
vocabulary, meaningful which Jewish cabbies chauffeur Arab passengers, too, and
text)_________________________________ yet speak in theory of hatred, one for the other? What is the
______________________________________ point of a nation in which one part seems to be always on
______________________________________ the verge of fisticuffs with another, blacks and whites, gays
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and straights, left and right, Pole and Chinese and Puerto
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Rican and Slovenian? Other countries with such divisions
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have in fact divided into new nations with new names, but
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not this one, impossibly interwoven even in its hostilities
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______________________________________ Once these disparate parts were held together by a common
______________________________________ enemy, by the fault lines of world wars and the electrified
______________________________________ fence of communism. With the end of the cold war there was
______________________________________ the creeping concern that without a focus for hatred and
______________________________________ distrust, a sense of national identity would evaporate, that
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the left side of the hyphen--African-American, Mexican-
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American, Irish-American--would overwhelm the right. And
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slow-growing domestic traumas like economic unrest and
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increasing crime seemed more likely to emphasize division
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than community. Today the citizens of the United States
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have come together once more because of armed conflict
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and enemy attack. Terrorism has led to devastation--and
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unity.
Annotation Space: (Write down anything different, even warring religions and cultures can live, if not
you feel may be important here; your side by side, than on either side of the country's Chester
thoughts on a passage, unfamiliar Avenues. Faced with this diversity there is little point in trying
vocabulary, meaningful to isolate anything remotely resembling a national character,
text)_________________________________ but there are two strains of behavior that, however
______________________________________ tenuously, abet the concept of unity.
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There is that Calvinist undercurrent in the American psyche
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______________________________________ that loves the difficult, the demanding, that sees mastering
Vietnamese, Iraqi, Jordanian, Latin American. They live in Annotation Space: (Write down anything
the store. They work seven days a week. Their kids are doing you feel may be important here; your
well in school. They're making it. Sound familiar?" thoughts on a passage, unfamiliar
vocabulary, meaningful
Tolerance is the word used most often when this kind of
text)_________________________________
coexistence succeeds, but tolerance is a vanilla-pudding
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word, standing for little more than the allowance of letting
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others live unremarked and unmolested. Pride seems
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excessive, given the American willingness to endlessly ______________________________________
complain about them, them being whoever is new, different, ______________________________________
unknown or currently under suspicion. But patriotism is ______________________________________
partly taking pride in this unlikely ability to throw all of us ______________________________________
together in a country that across its length and breadth is as ______________________________________
different as a dozen countries, and still be able to call it by ______________________________________
one name. When photographs of the faces of all those who ______________________________________
in one place, it will be possible to trace in the skin color, the ______________________________________
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shape of the eyes and the noses, the texture of the hair, a
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map of the world. These are the representatives of a
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mongrel nation that somehow, at times like this, has one
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spirit. Like many improbable ideas, when it actually works,
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it's a wonder.
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