“During the twentieth century, poor Caribbean women were drawn into a predictable, gendered model of work operating in the region's investment sites. In this model, poor men leave home to find temporary, labor-intensive employment in the early stages of economic development. Women later follow to take on more permanent service jobs such as maids, maids, and cleaners” (Almer, 99). The significance of the quote is that it shows the emergence of a model of work that has shaped the Caribbean for generations. In the early twentieth century poor women in the Eastern Caribbean followed male migrant workers to various places such as: Panama Canal, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Curacao, and Aruba to provide for their families. Eastern Caribbean women have developed their own family model, which includes nonmarital relationships and freedom to travel for work. According to Eastern Caribbean social norms, poor women are expected to have children and support them financially. This results in women leaving their children with extended family and supporting them by working in distant places (99). During the years leading up to the 1960s, female migrant workers found work as seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, and maids in labor camps located in the Panama Canal Zone, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic (100). As employment on these islands declined, women again followed the model of migrant workers by traveling to Trinidad, Curaçao, and Aruba to perform domestic work (101). “Women migrant workers experienced a form of freedom and independence accompanied by consistent and predictable wages. These domestic migrants were economic pillars for their dependents left behind in their societies of origin” (101). The quote shows how migrant women have moved from their economic status in their hometown to now being able to support themselves and their families through stable employment. During the 1960s, economic investment in tourism increased in the United States and the British Virgin Islands, in addition, Aruba and St. Maarten, the Netherlands, reported the pattern of forced immigration of women coming to work in the tourism industry ( 101). Increased tourism in the Virgin Islands has brought with it an increase in foreign-born and working women populations. “'The general prosperity stimulated by tourism has led to a demand for female workers, as maids and ancillary staff in hotels and gift shops and as maids in private homes'” (102). The quote demonstrates how women's work plays an important role in the economies of these islands.