Hispanics in Plano (Chicago, Aurora, Sandwich: showing, income, work)

[RTOPlano]

I am doing a paper on the Hispanic community in my neighborhood. I just recently moved to Plano, Illinois and have not had a chance to really experience life here. I was wondering if anyone who is Hispanic can give me insight on their feelings on living in this area is like. Also, if anyone can give me feedback that is not Hispanic, on what the view is on the Hispanic community in this area. Information about sources that would be helpful for my paper would be great. Thanks for your help.

[LadyLuck]

While I do not live in Plano, I would be interested to see the results.

[Tango Sierra]

Hispanics make up about 25 percent of Plano's population. When I moved here thirty-five years ago Plano already had a significant number of Hispanics. Many back then came here for the work in the foundries. The foundries are gone now and the population has increased, much of it from the growth of the original families. Most of these families are middle income and own their own homes and many are involved in community issues. I have a neighbor who is a physician and another who is a long time alderman. My adult children grew up with Hispanic friends and still maintain those contacts.

There are non-Hispanics who don’t like it that so much of our population is Hispanic but I think they are a small minority. There has been some worry about the gangs from Aurora gaining a foothold here but I don’t believe that has happened yet.

[Drover]

Well I'm not Hispanic and I don't live in Plano, but I do live in a neighborhood that is plurality Hispanic. ("Plurality" meaning they have form the largest ethnic bloc without being an outright majority.) In my neighborhood, the Hispanic presence has heretofore kept the neighborhood vital as they replace whites with ever-smaller family size and/or head for the suburbs. Without them, the neighborhood might have suffered substantial population decline and all the social ills that often come with said decline. If I had lived here for 25 years, I might have been alarmed by the changes in the neighborhood. But I walked into it already in its current ethnic balance with my eyes open.

Frankly, I like the Hispanic (mostly Mexican) immigrants. They are not a problem. I wish I could say the same for their immediate offspring. I'm not sure what the story is, but the immigrants are among the kindest people around while their first-generation American kids are often cretinous little reprobates, at least in the case of the males. Just last week I had one do his level best to pick a fight with me, a situation I had to do my damnedest to back out of because cops just don't want to hear "he started it" when you're a full-grown adult standing over a mangled 16-year-old kid. Meanwhile, to describe the family that lives across the street from me in a house I figure is worth about half a million: lovely immigrant parents, A-hole kids. Except for the girl.

I suspect a contributing factor to the difference is that the conspicuous kindness/courtesy of the immigrant parents is a way of showing gratitude to their host nation while their kids don't feel any such need to display gratitude. But that still doesn't explain why the offspring are often punks instead of simply indifferent like most other American kids. Maybe it's an urban thing and they're exposed to the gang culture and it's an easy way to blend in. The white-bread suburb I grew up in had a small handful of Hispanic kids in our school (it's a bit more than a handful now) and they were seamlessly integrated into the, for lack of a better term, "white" culture of the community. Then again, their only other option at the time was isolation, so they adapted.

In short, my observation is that the first generation of American-born Hispanics (or those brought here at a very early age) have a bit of a hard go at fitting in. The second generation and beyond seem to do just fine. And I thank the lot of you for finally bringing some spice -- literally and figuratively -- into American cuisine.

I should also clarify that these observations may be particular to Chicago and/or the Midwest, which has not been immersed in Hispanic culture for hundreds of years like California/Arizona/Texas/etc. have been.

[xxJoyfulxx]

I lived near Plano for about 15 years, the last time I lived there was back in about 1998. The community where I grew up was one of the more closed-minded, farm country, not diverse ones and there was a general negative impression about Plano in my town - and I suspect that it was largely because of the Hispanic population. Not all small towns are like this, but mine was.
That being said, I went to church in Plano & Sandwich and also lived in Yorkville when I was very young and I personally had a lot of Hispanic friends and acquaintances my whole life from Plano and that whole area. I never had a problem hanging out in Plano and I never really thought negatively of the town - but I heard otherwise from people where I lived.

I am not really aware of how things have changed or what the impression of the Plano is today, but that is my small insight into what I've experienced in the past.