(1) The United States has always been a diverse society. (2) In 1673, more than three centuries ago, a visitor to what is
now New York City was astonished to find that eighteen languages were spoken among the city's eight thousand
inhabitants. (3) By the middle of the nineteenth century, so many people from so many lands had come to the United
States that the novelist Herman Melville exclaimed, "You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood
of the whole world."
(4) One can only imagine what Melville would say today! (5) The United States has become the most diverse society on
the face of the Earth. (6) For more than a century, most immigrants to the United States were Europeans-Irish,
Germans, English, Scandinavians, Greeks, Poles, Italians, and others. (7) Together with African Americans, they made
America the "melting pot" of the world. (8) Today another great wave of immigration more than one million people a
year, mostly from Asia and Latin America—is transforming the United States into what one writer has called the "first
universal nation" a multicultural society of unmatched diversity,
2. The primary purpose of this paragraph is to
a inform readers that the United States is and always was a diverse society
b. persuade readers that a multicultural society is the best type of society
c entertain readers with colorful facts about the United States