Passage #1: Abstract, Ordinary, Concrete

When photographs of the faces of all

those who died in the World Trade Center
destruction are assembled in one place, it
will be possible to trace in the skin color,
the shape of the eyes and the noses, the
texture of the hair, a map of the world.

Passage #2: Poetic, Technical, Concrete

In the same sense we cannot really
speak of a particular immigrant
contribution to America because all
Americans have been immigrants or the
descendents of immigrants; even the
Indians, as mentioned above, migrated to
the American continent.

Passage #3: Sophisticated, Ordinary,

Slangy
Immigration plainly was not always a
happy experience.

Passage #4: Ordinary, Scientific,

Sophisticated
There is that Calvinist undercurrent in the
American psyche that loves the difficult,
the demanding that sees mastering the
impossible, whether it be prairies or
subway, as a test of character, and so
glories in the struggle of this fractured
coalescing.