It's summer, it's 105 degrees outside, and mini-me could get lost in your front lawn because you haven't cut the grass in two months. Your sewage pipes are corroded, and you need new pool decking. Somebody needs to re-shingle your roof, and the paint is peeling off your walls. So who you gonna call?
Immigrants.
Thirty years ago, these miserable tasks would have been the job of the neighborhood 16-year-old and his friends. Back then, young men could work all summer at hard, honest labor. They could get some calluses on their hands; earn some money for an end-of-summer trip or a car. Now, the jobs go to the friendly fellas outside the local Home Depot.
Why the change? And is this change hurting the cultural fabric of America?
After discussing the issue with several local construction and painting contractors, I came up with three reasons why people hire immigrants to do their lawn care and household maintenance instead of local teens.
1. Today's youth are lazy. I remember getting paid $20 to mow my neighbor's lawn. I would venture to say that I was more physically active than most kids my age, but it was still torture. I whined and griped and took a water break every nine minutes and generally did a half-assed job. This work ethic seems to be instilled in many kids my age and younger. We are the first generation to be raised by a middle-class that made its living almost entirely without physical labor. We are not the sons and daughters of carpenters, welders and masons like prior generations. Instead our parents were teachers, lawyers, businessmen or journalists. The baby-boomer desk-jockeys who brought us up taught us nothing about the value of manual work, because they didn't do any themselves.
2. Immigrants do a better job. Immigrants are not stealing the jobs of America's youth; folks are just hiring the people who do the best job. Immigrants are willing to work harder and at a higher standard than the average high school kid because their lives and the lives of their families depend upon them getting paid. It is market capitalism in action, and the people offering the best product are the ones in demand.
3. Illegal immigrants, by necessity, work outside the law. High school kids do as well, to an extent, but they can always fall back on their rights as citizens if something really quirky is going on. For example, at my apartment complex there are eight people living in a two-bedroom apartment on the floor below me for free. In exchange, they do landscaping and are in the process of painting the complex. This isn't so bad, but if the manager of my complex wanted to kick them out, she could do so with no legal repercussions if they are illegal immigrants.
The point is because illegal immigrants have no rights as citizens, it is less of a risk to hire them. After all, if they do an unacceptable job and the contractor refuses to pay, the immigrants have no means of retaliation. Since Proposition 102 was passed in November 2006, illegal immigrants can't even sue for punitive damages if they are hurt while working.
So basically immigrants are getting the jobs because Americans are lazy, immigrants do a better job and there is no legal risk in ripping off an immigrant. It seems pretty simple, but the repercussions are widespread. Most of my generation will never physically exert themselves for money, never see the finished product of their labor, never understand what it means to go to sleep sore from a day's work.
If toughness and hard physical work ever part of the cultural fabric of America, it is safe to say that the shift to immigrant labor is helping to tear them out of it.
Jed Dougherty will not mow your lawn for any amount of money. To complain, email him at: john.dougherty@asu.edu.