This is a nation founded on a conundrum, what Mario Cuomo has characterized as "community added to individualism." These two are our defining ideals; they are also in constant conflict. Historians today bemoan the ascendancy of a kind of prideful apartheid in America, saying that the clinging to ethnicity, in background and custom, has undermined the concept of unity. These historians must have forgotten the past, or have gilded it. –"A Quilt of a Country," Anna Quindlen Which statement best summarizes the central idea of this paragraph? The ideals of individualism and community are no longer part of America. The ideals of individualism and community have always been in conflict with one another in America. The ideals of individualism and community have never really existed in America. The ideals of individualism and community coexist harmoniously in America.

The main point that the author makes as deduced from this excerpt is that individualism and community are two ways of living that exist in America but that also clash with each other.

Individualism is seen in the fact that people tend to cling to their own ethnic groups and ways of doing things. This limits their association with people from other ethnicities. Thus the unity and community spirit are undermined. A conflict is created from the foregoing.

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