SHATTERED DREAMS BROKEN PROMISES - THE COST OF COMING TO AMERICA by MICHAEL VINER : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

It's common knowledge that there are thousands of beautiful and desperately poor women who want out of Eastern Europe. 

Some of these women are also romantic and innocent, or at least idealistic and hopeful.  Some have been raped or had their reputations ruined in their own country and there is no recourse.  A woman may feel she has nothing left to loose and maybe it will turn out OK.

Each chapter of this book is a woman's personal story about leaving her home country hoping for a better life - a better man - a better education or job - a higher standard of living - even great wealth.  

What woman anywhere cannot relate to that desire to do well? 

Many Russian and other Slavic women are lured to the United States to be brides. Some of them are happy with the match they have made or at least tolerant of it because they want to stay long enough to not only get Green Cards to work but to become U.S. Citizens.  What a woman from Eastern Europe expects out of a man and marriage may also be radically different from what women in America expect. In Russia, according to this book, it is common for men to be alcoholic, beat their wives, and have more than one girlfriend at a time.  So they may feel "anything could be better."

A woman who wants to be married and may be coming to the U.S. to marry should ask herself why a man, especially one who is successful in his work and owns a home, cannot find a bride in the United States.  He may say he doesn't like American women and is looking for something an Eastern European woman has (or he imagines she has) such as being more sexual or more obedient or servile.  Maybe he is counting on a woman not knowing the truth about him until she is here and it is too late.

Sadly, I've use the word lure because of the dishonesty that many Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and other Slavic women experience, that leads them into not only being unhappy wives but becoming strippers, prostitutes, and sometimes drug addicts.  These women who are trapped in sex work, even trafficked as slaves, often then lie to their families in Europe about what they are doing to send money and even support the whole family from here. 

At what price?

Some make enough to go back and restart a life there without anyone knowing what really happened to them in America.

The title of this book, "Shattered Dreams Broken Promises" is in error because there are some happy endings in this collection,  but there is also, sadly, stories of women who are willingly involved in crime in order to financially profit from American men through dangerous scams, women who are involved with Russian Mafia, and one women based in London who says she owns Internet prostitution sites and has made millions.  

In some chapters, if you read this book, you will get the impression that Eastern European women want to go into prostitution in order to make as much money as possible in their beautiful youth.  So, as you read, you may experience a tangle of emotions and wish you could ask some questions of these women.  If you are not so poor yourself, you may not have a personal experience of this desperation and judge them harshly. 

But is a woman a victor rather than a victim because she is the person who is making millions through criminal activity?

I'm concerned that there are so many women who are fooled into ruining their lives.  I'm concerned that they are told, once they get to the U.S., that the job they were promised is actually to be a sex worker.  How terrible to have no way out other than to become homeless and on the street in a foreign country where they don't have real friend.  Since they do not even have the money to buy a plane ticket back to Russia, some are told they only have to prostitute until they pay the person who bought their ticket back.  That is usually a lie too.

There are women who do marry and are soon abused and afraid to report it, though, interestingly, if a woman is beaten she may instantly qualify for protection and legal status in the United States.  (So if you are an immigrant woman reading this and are being tricked or abused going to the police is the thing to do.  Call 911 or a domestic abuse hotline or go to a police station and ask to be taken to a woman's shelter as your next step.  I will give a National Hotline number for those who are being Sex Trafficked as well at the end of this month.)

A few years ago I was taking a walk when I saw a police car pull up to an elegant town house on a quiet street.  It was in the middle of the day.  I was curious as two officers ran to the door.  A young beautiful woman with a small suitcase was waiting for them.  I heard them talking to her.  "He lied to me." she began.  "My mother is taking care of my child in Russia."

 SHATTERED DREAMS BROKEN PROMISES is C 2007 Michael Viner  Phoenix Books