Metro Detroit's Landscaping Crews Look Whiter This Year
One owner of a landscaping company told me he hasn't seen a Mexican guy cutting grass since last summer
Farmington — I saw a crew of white dudes cutting lawns the other day in Farmington. Two black guys were maintaining the Livonia Sears property on Sunday. I watched a crew of young men, ostensibly Americans, put a new roof on my neighbor’s house a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve been repeatedly told by wine-sipping Americans that Americans wouldn’t do these jobs.
A few years ago, during the Biden administration, an affluent, disaffected liberal friend remarked jokingly—but half seriously—that white people, specifically white working-class males, have become lazy and virtually worthless in the labor market.
This notion bothered me, because I knew there might be a kernel of truth to this idea. Was this true? It might have been, based on growing numbers of men not working over the past two decades.
But the more pernicious narrative around the issue, going back decades—and embraced by a generation of boomers—centers on the need for mass migration, with a blind eye for illegal immigration, under the mantra: “They do the jobs Americans won’t do.”
They mean the dirty, unappealing, non-union, unskilled manual labor paying minimum wage or less (under the table) that Americans bathing in comfort won’t do—like, say, landscaping and roofing.
I can remember a commercial lawn care company operating in Livonia in the 1990s with a owner boasting of his illegal workforce. I remember his smug face telling me, “They work harder and for less.”
The temerity of his statement, with his shit-eating grin, still pisses me off.
Starting in 2025, the second Trump administration ended the flow of illegal immigration over our borders after the free flow of illegals entering the country ballooned to 20 million people, according to rough estimates. Many people, including “No Kings” attendees, winced in pain as ICE enforcement moved like a wave over the country, staging in urban areas and Home Depot parking lots.
To what degree that enforcement has been successful is hard to determine, but the optics are becoming interesting in Metro Detroit. The street-level vibe often takes time to recognize.
“I’m seeing a lot of white guys cutting lawns lately,” remarked a buddy of mine on a phone call. “Yeah, me too,” was all I could muster in the moment, but the mouse in the brain started running on its treadmill. Next thing I know, I’m seeing white guys mowing lawns commercially all over Metro Detroit. I guess white dudes do those jobs now.
I called the owner of a landscaping company based in Northville to check my vision on this remarkable occurrence. “I haven’t seen a Mexican guy cutting a lawn since summer of 2025.”
Why this is happening is another story, but Mike provided several theories.
“You gotta pay an illegal almost the same anyway, usually in cash, which they send back home, and there may also be other economic options for them, including potentially returning home. Whatever is happening, it appears to be working.”
What the f— is going on here? I told him I was writing about it. “Don’t do it,” said a close friend. “It sounds kinda racist, bro.”
It’s racist to acknowledge that manual labor within the landscaping industry, traditionally performed by Spanish-speaking males of Hispanic descent, is being done by whites and blacks?
Evidence that Americans actually will do the jobs few want—to the degree that we’ve imported tens of millions of military-aged males into the American underclass—runs contrary to conventional neoliberal thinking. It should be studied further.
Are we studying it? Or is acknowledging that white guys cut lawns also racist?
I traversed Metro Detroit to check my vision on this, just to make sure. Driving around a condominium complex in Shelby Township, I spied 3 Feathers Commercial Lawn & Snow. Two white guys, one with a chew in, both moving with urgency.
The urban myth of white laziness is falling apart, and all it took was noticing.
