Select the three pieces of direct evidence from the passage that best support the author's claim that America is an improbable idea."
"it is held together by a notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though
everyone knows that most men consider themselves better than someone"
"Many of the oft-told stories of the most pluralistic nation on earth are stories not of
tolerance, but of bigotry."
"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 the left
side of the hyphen- African-American, Mexican-American, Irish-American-would
overwhelm the right."
"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.
These are the representatives of a mongrel nation that somehow, at times like this,
has one spirit."
"The old neighborhood Ma-Pa stores are still around. They are not Italian or Jewish
or Eastern European any more. Ma and Pa are now Korean, Vietnamese, Iraqi,
Jordanian, Latin American. They live in the store. They work seven days a week.
Their kids are doing well in school. They're making it. Sound familiar?"
"Today the citizens of the United States have come together once more because of
armed conflict and enemy attack. Terrorism has led to devastation-and unity."