Labor Pioneers -- Economy, Labor, and Migration in Filipino-Danish Relations, 1950-2015

As a "Philippine history of Denmark," Labor Pioneers is a fascinating and multilayered narrative of Filipinas migrating to an unlikely destination in Europe starting in the 1960's, with the story following the rise and fall of the Marcos regime and the succeeding decades. Driven by oral histories, the book's richly textured accounts feature a host if transnational actors ranging from Philippine and Danish policy makers, Gunnar Myrdal and the ILO, Danish hotels and labor unions, and the intrepid women who worked as chambermaids in Copenhagen. With much empathy, Andersen shows how migrants, amid structures and changing circumstances, created "new societies," lived their faith, reworked ties to the homeland, and raised families - a second generation coming into its own and having to negotiate Filipino identity. -- Filomeno V. Aguilar, Jr Editor, Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints