Read the excerpt from "A Quilt of a Country."The New York of my children is no more Balkanized, probably less so, than the Phila
delphia of my father, in which Jewish boys would walk several blocks out of their way to avoid the Irish divide of Chester Avenue. (I was the product of a mixed marriage, across barely bridgeable lines: an Italian girl, an Irish boy. How quaint it seems now, how incendiary then.) The Brooklyn of Francie Nolan's famous tree, the Newark of which Portnoy complained, even the uninflected WASP suburbs of Cheever's characters: they are ghettos, pure and simple. Do the Cambodians and the Mexicans in California coexist less easily today than did the Irish and Italians of Massachusetts a century ago
This question is incomplete. According to a different source, the rest of the question states:
<em>What technique does Quindlen use to support the idea that America is less polarized now than it was in past history?</em>
The technique that Quindlen employs is vivid imagery. In this text, Quindlen talks about the ways in which division, segregation and racism were expressed in the past, compared to how they are expressed nowadays in the United States. However, she does so through the use of vivid descriptions and details, such as the story of her parents. With this device, Quindlen ensures that the reader becomes more involved and interested in the text.
