Isolated in the home, domestic workers are often cut off from information about benefits or rights to which they are entitled. It would seem that their most reliable sources of information and empowerment come from the Black community newspapers and organizations and from their membership in various churches. Most of the women cited church as their only occasion for relief and socializing.

My only relief is when I get a chance to go to church on Sundays where I can cry out loud to the Lord and tell Him my troubles. When I go on Sundays I meet other girls who in the same position like me. (Noreen, p. 27)

Canada has a history of racist immigration laws. There is little altruism in the immigration policies of one of the richest countries in the world. People are admitted if they have something the Canadian establishment deems necessary: investment, specialized skills, or the willingness to do the work Canadians refuse to do:

We take the jobs that they would not take and yet they hate us so much. (Primrose, p. 100)

The portrait of Canada drawn by these ten women is a strong indictment, and one that all who still have hopes for a better society should take firmly to heart.

For those stout-hearted, Makeda Silvera suggests various routes: pressuring the state (federal and provincial) for better laws; unionization of domestic workers; polarization of their plight. She provides a rather incomplete list of advocacy organizations that aid immigrant workers. I especially smart over the exclusion of Quebec's excellent Au Bas de l'Echelle (Rank and File).

My one criticism of the book is the somewhat cursory analysis of the situation. Although Silvera gives some interesting background information on immigrant domestic workers in Canada, identifies the main problems assailing domestic workers who want to organize themselves, and touches on the current discussion regarding women's private and public spheres, she does not really deal with the issue of power which she raised in her introduction or with the economy of indentured labor. She does, however, raise an important question: "Is there any reason to think these women will take steps on their own behalf?" I hope that they will, but it is also clear by their own words that they are not out to reform Canada, but to fulfill their hopes for their families within the status quo:

When I get my landed... I'm going to rent a little bachelor apartment and really fix it up nice. Then I want to save the rest of my money to pay for my grandchildren's high school education. (Noreen, p. 30)

I want to start living like a normal person with my family. (Molly, p.8l)

This country has been so savage to these women that one can hardly expect them to be concerned about its welfare. On the other hand, after the all struggle, some of them express fear at bringing their children here:

Now the way things is I scared to make plans. Is like there is always disappointments following you... I don't know if I want my children to come up here...it's so many problems. (Irma, p. 97)

Canada was created by immigrants who have historically been better to it than it deserved, often over assimilating to their own peril, especially in times of crisis for example, the Jews and Japanese during World war II, who ironically found themselves on "opposite sides" of racist government policies.

This country were to gain these women as citizens, their energy and ability to manage their lives under extreme adversity would in itself be a major contribution of life skills to a sated nation in pursuit of gadgets and "good times."

One finishes Silenced in wonder at the tenacity and courage of these lonely exploited women. Makeda Silvera has presented them to us with passion and respect. Her articulated hope for the book is that "the lives and struggles of these women will provide other domestic workers with a sense of power and a sense of their own history," and that it "will serve. As a point of identity for all women who have been silenced." I too hope that this book will reach and give courage to domestic workers to organize and struggle for their rights. Since all women have experienced "silencing" in one form or another in our lives, I hope that the female general public, exploiters and exploited, will read this book, engage with it actively, and ask ourselves the courageous questions the book demands: "How am I implicated and what can I do?"

Greta Hofmann Nemiroff is a feminist writer, speaker, and educator and Director of the New School of Dawson College in Montreal.