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They are known as “mearing and hitting” guys. It’s a legion of primarily Latin gardeners who drive broken trucks and trailers with lawn mowers, weed robbers and other yard care devices as they tilt the yards in suburban Southern California neighborhoods.
But Daniel, an undocumented gardener in the United States for 20 years, does not consider himself that way. He does more for his clients – also trimming plants, fertilizing, weeding. In fact, some of his clients have only small grasses these days, or no grass, but they still need his services.
He still needs to work despite immigrant raids taking place in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties. The latter is where he has been running the yard care business for 11 years.
Looking back at his unstable position, he quieted the leaf blower, took off his sunglasses, and gave only his name for safety.
“These times are really difficult and everyone is afraid of them,” he said. “That’s really not normal. We’re always careful, but you know, we need to work. We need to pay the bills because bills are always coming and they won’t stop.”
On this June morning, his 15-year-old daughter joined him in his round through the Ventura neighborhood. She and her sisters (10 and 18) were born in the United States, while her parents were born in Mexico. The daughter was friendly with a welcoming smile, but when the debate changed over whether she and her family discussed what would happen if their parents were detained by immigrants, she became as serious as her father.
Criticism about immigration worries about her parents’ status. “It’s always been a part of our experience, but now it’s much worse,” she said quietly. “It feels like a lack of empathy.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an estimated 1.2 million people work in landscaping and on-site landscaping in the United States, with 88% of California’s public policy research reporting, and 68% are immigrants. It is unclear how many of these immigrants have not been documented.
President Trump promised to crack down on illegal immigrants during his campaign, and five months later, immigrant raids escalated around so-called sanctuary cities in the Los Angeles area, including agricultural areas such as Ventura and Oxnard.
Earlier that morning, a US immigration and customs enforcement officer was found in the Ventura area and in the front parking lot of the Ventura Police Station. The police department posted on social media that no officers were involved and declared “Our Commitment: All Safety Regardless of Status” on Instagram. Meanwhile, the Ventura College Foundation has cancelled its popular weekend marketplace. The marketplace attracts 2,000 to 5,000 vendors and customers to college parking every weekend due to concerns about ice activity, according to messages recorded over the phone.
Five Latino landscape crews, less than three miles from the police parking lot, worked in the front yard, building complex passages from polymorphic pavement. The boss said he was sure his workers had their papers, but no one wanted to talk because even Latino citizens were wiped out by enforcement action. “People are afraid, but they still have to work,” he said. “So we’re coming to work and seeing what happens.”
A few miles away, a Latinx landscaper with a beard of hairy salt and pepper was waiting on the truck. He came to the US from Mexico 30 years ago and has been involved in landscaping at Ventura for 25 years, he said. He is single and works with his family and “until two weeks ago, I didn’t worry about anything,” he said. “It’s now [detention] It’s something I worry about every day. ”
He intended to gas the truck that morning, but drove past the station when he saw a “law enforcement” vehicle with a pump. “I’ve taken some precautions,” he said. “They haven’t come here yet. They were just on Main Street. But I pay taxes every year. I work. As long as we work and contribute here…”
Daniel came to the US from Mexico about 20 years ago, he said. “In Mexico, everyone was jumping, so things were really tough. [to the U.S.] I’m looking for a better life. “In the beginning he did all the jobs he found, roofing, building houses, and all the jobs he worked in a machine shop until 2014. [to be a gardener] And I’ll take it. “Currently he works five days a week, visiting 8-10 yards a day, saying that on average it costs around $150 a month.
If he and his wife are in custody, Daniel said they have family members who can help their daughter, or “Maybe we can take the girls to Mexico, but they want to be here and stay at school.”
Their eldest son is studying to become an anesthesiologist at a nearby university, he said. His daughter is a hardworking worker who is a “good child”, so leaving will have a “really bad” effect on them. He glanced at the 15-year-old, who wanted to become an orthodontist and was listening enthusiastically.
“I’m always looking for a better life,” he said. “But when you have a family, the thing we think most is the kids. I think this is the point for all parents. We have kids here, so absolutely they have a better life than us.”
Fear and frustration are popular throughout the horticultural world. Terremoto Landscape, a landscape company with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, has notably posted information about immigrant rights on its website and Instagram.
“Landscape construction, maintenance and the entire California workforce engine is not possible without the migrant workforce,” says an Instagram post that was accompanied by multiple photos of landscape workers covering their faces covered in black boxes.
“But more importantly, immigrants are our friends, family and neighbors. Our community and life are endlessly superior for our presence in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and across the United States. Over the past few days, ice and National Guard actions have revealed the purpose of xenophobia, bilent and violence.”
The company’s principal refuses to be interviewed and writes in a text that he wants to be sensitive to non-governmental organizations supporting the immigrant community.
Independent gardening jobs have long attracted people who have been excluded from other jobs, said Mike Garcia, a landscape contractor who owns Enviroscape LA in Redondo Beach. For example, many Japanese-Americans who were detained in prison camps during the war after World War II moved to gardening jobs because they “helped no one for other jobs,” he said.
In the 1950s there were so many Japanese gardeners around LA that the California landscape contractor was Assn. We have created a special “Pacific Coast Branch” for members of Asian Heritage. Sitting on the board of the association’s Los Angeles/San Gabriel Valley chapter, Garcia’s membership declined over the years as Japanese families left gardening and chapters recently dissolved.
Latino immigrants filled the void when Japanese gardeners were pulled away from the fields, Garcia said.
“If you’re not used to this country, Latinos are looking for a better life, you can’t find work because you don’t have paperwork, you can pick up a lawn mower and mow the lawn,” Garcia said. “Latinos who couldn’t speak English still managed to mow their lawns and write bills, and ultimately took over the gardening deal.”
Many Latino immigrants feel compelled to find work quickly as they have to pay their debts to travel to the US, said Manuel Vicente, director and producer of Radio Giornalera, the digital communications division of the National Day Workers Organization Network, which provides information, support and awareness to migrant workers with limited work options. Gardeners and landscapers are in high demand around LA, he said, and the job does not even require advertising or English flow.
“They see it as an opportunity and are proud of the work they do,” Vicente said. “When will there be a garden that no one cares about, and workers come and turn that garden into something beautiful, and it can be seen that it is satisfying for them.” And a good job will help drum more business.
“In Spanish, there is the phrase “el sor ser para todos.” Or the sun rises for everyone. That means everyone has an opportunity to do their job,” Vicente said.
“Obviously, there are certain jobs that some people aren’t willing to do… others who are willing to accept it because of wages and difficulties. I don’t think it’s a job. For many immigrants, it’s the only place they can work to make a living and survive.”
Vicente helped launch a network that organizes networks in Pasadena in 2019 during Trump’s first term in office to help Spanish-speaking immigrants understand their rights.
“I’m a proud immigrant and I think I should change the story,” Vicente said. “People think everything in this country is wrong, but it’s for immigration, and that’s not true. I think immigration is part of the solution in this country and why California has one of the world’s biggest economies.”
Immigrants like Daniel are working and sending their children to college, Vicente said. “They come for a better life and they are building a better country here, but they are also sending money to the families of their previous countries, so they are building two countries. We should recognize that.”
He said the current ice attack felt like racial persecution. “I know they’ve already stopped multiple citizens, people born here, because they’re brown and fit their profiles so I think no one is safe. Anyone who looks Latino, I don’t know that’s on that profile, but it’s just a brown person.
Over the weekend, Trump said he asked Ice to stop attacks at Big Farms and hotels, but on Sunday announced plans to expand immigration enforcement measures in major “Democrat-controlled” cities, including Los Angeles.
It’s difficult for an independent gardener like Daniel to do his job without being noticed. Their trucks and trailers are visibly equipped with trade tools. But like their bill, work is waiting.
According to Vicente, “People who don’t want us here are benefactors of our work. They may take care of our parents and children. They want to make food, clean our houses, build our gardens, build our homes, but they don’t want to recognize our humanity.”
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