Hypertext 2: Landscaping

In my second hypertext essay, I am going to write about the low wage life of landscaping workers and also to incorporate why there are more people of one ethnic group that work in landscaping.

I myself have not been employed in the landscaping industry, however, I have had experience with landscaping at my own home and we have recently had our front walk/patio redone through a landscaping company. Throughout the week-long process of construction (although it seemed more like a remodeling), I watched this small landscaping crew take apart my front walkway, dig it out, rip up all the cement, add new materials for the base and to make it level, and to actually place all the stones for the new walkway. When I left for work on Monday morning at 7 in the morning, I saw the landscaping crew drop off one (1) guy to start tearing up the old walkway. When I returned that afternoon at 4, that one guy had completely removed every stone slab, all the cement underneath those stone slabs, and even dug out the wider path for the new walkway without any help from others and without any power tools.

But even more interesting, was that they probably get paid near to nothing, and most likely are paid under the table. The workers themselves spoke very little English, yet they were greatly skilled and knew exactly what needed to be done on the job. Shipler states that “for a paltry wage, albeit on far greater than at home, [immigrants] feed and clothe and comfort the Americans they wish to emulate. So it is in potato fields and sewing lofts, in cleaners and restaurants, and in the manicured gardens of suburban affluence” (77).

Immigrant workers in the landscaping industry seems to be directly related to everyone in the U.S., whether we have hired a landscaping crew or not, you see it everywhere – public gardens, parks, schools and universities, the list goes on. The basic business objective is to obtain equal or higher quality but by paying much less for it. Landscaping companies can offer this to their customers through the use of immigrant workers, and also by paying their employees very low wages.