The global beauty industry, colorism, racism and the national body
level of contentedness. The book is in three parts; the context, the actors, and the aftermath. The context introduces Paul's conceptual framework, the push and pull factors in migration, how they are managed, how host countries, agencies and the migrants themselves are distinguished, differentiated and sorted by gender, nationality and culture, including religion, ethnicity, education and class. In part two we meet the actors, the women, becoming engrossed in their world, their journeys, the contents of their suitcases and their canny ways of keeping going. Eva's story is both typical and unique. A Filipina teacher, she dreamed of going to Canada but because of the cost and the barriers to entry, she went by way of Taiwan (1 year) returned home for a year from where she tried for Canada but she still couldn't afford the fees, then to Malaysia for 3 years, back home for another year but with Canada still out of reach, so she went to Cyprus where after 5 years she finally made it, entering Canada on a caregiver visa, ultimately becoming a permanent resident (p. 317) Gena, also from the Philippines, spent 2 years in Saudi Arabia, then moved to Hong Kong where she has been for 16 years, becoming an active member of the community as a union organizer, and starting a charitable support group for domestic workers like herself. Being settled in Hong Kong, she decided to stay rather than move to Canada, meanwhile buying property back home to provide long term security. Like her sister migrants, Gena was also sending money back to help her relatives, ultimately becoming the matriarch of her extended family. Not all were success stories, however, and women found themselves overstaying their visas, losing their jobs, becoming illegal. Roxie, for instance, lived in a shelter while pursuing a civil case against her employer in Hong Kong, and Vania returned home to Indonesia but remained unemployed. The aftermath discusses the women's journeys' ends. While many were positive about their social and familial situation, there were regrets about the non recognition of their skills and qualifications and that elusive upward social mobility. Resistance to a fair valuation of their hard earned cultural and human capital was keenly felt: once a woman migrant domestic worker, always so, as I and my coresearcher have also found (Yilmaz Ledwith, 2017) This is a baggy book, as if the author was determined to include as much as possible, sometimes detracting from her main focus, the women migrating from Indonesia and the Philippines. Better editing and more data presented in tabular form would have helped its digestibility. Nevertheless, it remains an important study and a good read.