<p>One of the most detailed accounts of the Plano “heroin
massacre” can be read in the archives of the Dallas Observer:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999-05-06/news/bad-trip/[/url]”>http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999-05-06/news/bad-trip/</a></p>
<p>While the problems are real, it would be a mistake to believe this community is defined by those tragic incidents. And, fwiw, I don’t think that this fact ought to be very high on Token’s travel agenda.</p>
<p>The “Asian World Market” just opened up a couple months ago (a new and large strip shopping center to an Asian clientele and an “Asian” supermarket at its center) just opened a couple months ago at the southeast corner of Legacy Drive and I-75 in Plano.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tip about the Asian World Market. That sounds like something one could find in the San Gabriel Valley in California. Cool.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For better or worse, it is hard to remember anything else that generated national publicity about Plano. Readers of CC outside Texas might notice news articles about the occasional student who wins a national competition, but this is not the kind of thing that makes the television news. Plano has a reputation of alienated Stepford suburbia combined with wealth and comfort, so on the one hand the horror stories fed a pre-existing perception (e.g. that teenage alienation would be so great as to fuel suicides and a drug wave), on the other it was newsworthy precisely because it’s atypical for a town with those economics (when heroin strikes places like Plano, look out).</p>
<p>I think some of the 80-90s reputation of Plano was tied to the suburb being whitebread. If the town has become an Asian enclave that would change the picture some.</p>
<p>It wasn’t actually statistically newsworthy, since what actually occurred was 13 deaths over a 3 year period. It was, however, an event that lent itself to sensationalizing for the purpose of titillation and ratings.</p>
<p>In Texas, what we think of when we hear the name Plano is nationally recognized academics, powerhouse athletics and yes… upper middle class wealth. Maybe because Texans were more informed about the true facts regarding the heroin cases that occurred, we are not as easily manipulated by the press as the rest of the nation into the ‘OMG rich folks on smack!’ hysteria. (And…it WAS ten years ago…time enough for Plano to have developed a reputation for something else…if you were paying attention.)</p>
<p>Btw…how do you figure a ‘whitebread suburb’ becoming an ‘Asian enclave’ changes the picture with regard to perceptions? Does this involved any more generalizations or preconceived notions… ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s an interesting question. I recall a newspaper article, which I saw on some news aggregation site on the Web, suggesting that now in some place I don’t recall off-hand (California? New Jersey? Massacusetts?) white parents flee school districts with heavy enrollments of Chinese-American students, because the academic competition is too intense. There is no such school district here in Minnesota: there are at least five school districts in the greater Twin Cities that all have a good draw for academically ambitious families and a good track record for sending high school graduates off to highly selective colleges, and families of all ethnicities live in all those school districts. (Not to mention that Minnesota has public school open enrollment, so in principle any family can send their children to any public school district, if they are willing to transport the child to the border of the district.) </p>
<p>But, yes, to return to the topic of the thread (ahem), what I hear about Plano in my various information networks is precisely this, that it is one of the school districts in north Texas with a great reputation for academically strong public schools, and that many Plano graduates go on to nationally famous colleges, whatever their ethnicity. I am very pleased to hear that there is now an Asian mall there–something like that also does not exist in Minnesota.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The number of arrests, overdoses, deaths, and well-to-do teenagers charged with drug felonies all combined to make it a statistical event.</p>
<p><a href=“And…it%20WAS%20ten%20years%20ago…time%20enough%20for%20Plano%20to%20have%20developed%20a%20reputation%20for%20something%20else…if%20you%20were%20paying%20attention.”>quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There are a hundred towns all over the country with very competitive high schools. Is there some special reason people outside Texas should have taken notice of Plano? The scandals were more unique to Plano, so for better or worse, they are what put it on the map in the eyes of the rest of the country.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Towns with variety in their population tend to also have more variety in other areas (restaurants, arts etc), which makes for less of the stereotyped suburban environment. Also, immigrants and Asians tend to regulate their children more, which cuts down on all the fun stuff associated with the alienated Stepford suburb: alcohol, drug use, heavy metal (or whatever the current teen-culture analogue), unregulated car privileges/schedule/credit cards/allowance, teenage sex, smoking, etc. So I would expect fewer pathologies, or at least a different set of pathologies, as the immigrant population rises and the town becomes more “multicultural”.</p>
<p>The article about whites escaping Asian-saturated high schools was a Wall Street Journal piece called “The New White Flight”. Discussed in many places on the internet.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was a good tip; thanks. Using that mall name as a search phrase on Google turned up some more information about the Asian zone in greater Dallas (Richardson) and led to some interesting shopping. Our road trip was hurried but enjoyable. My wife and I have known the friend we visited in Plano since we first met twenty-five years ago. </p>
<p>Oklahoma was interesting. We had meal stops southbound in Muskogee and northbound in Okmulgee. That was the last state that I have traversed by land–I have now been to all fifty states. </p>
<p>Best wishes to everyone for safe travels this summer, especially those of you doing family visits to college campuses.</p>