rozzieoz wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 9:00 pm
I’ll always be an immigrant since I left my country of birth and relocated.

Concur... We're immigrants since we're in a foreign country.. peeps just enjoy pretty labels such as "expat" bc it gives us the warm and fuzzy... If I was in a foreign country as a garbage collector some would call me a migrant worker but I'd rather pick expat bc it makes me feel good and boost my self esteem

Ex-pat is a rather meaningless term. Somehow I moved abroad at the age of 17 and subsequently lived in quite a few countries before ever encountering the term. Since then I have noticed how it can refer to, for example, both Hong Kong based financial consultants and beer-bellied yobs living it up on the Costa Del Sol. What's the point of that? We are just foreigners, no point in making up convoluted titles.

fax wrote: ↑Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:30 pm Now I'm out, it's like talking to the crazy cat lady.

My cats make more sense than you.

Ben Groundwater has written article on this subject in SMH/Age Traveller section

There are immigrants, and then there are "expats". White people get to be expats. They get to live in other countries just to work and have a good time. Everyone else has to be an immigrant, with all of the job-stealing, dole-bludging stigma that that label carries. They're different.

It seems incredible to me that there can be one group of people that travels to have the time of their lives, and another group that travels to save their lives, and we think only one of those is acceptable. And, mind-bogglingly, it's the ones having fun.

Full: https://www.traveller.com.au/expat-or-i ... ide-h1iueq

I just looked up the UNHCR definitions and i am pretty sure
i qualify to be called a refugee.

timmydownawell wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:26 am Ben Groundwater has written article on this subject in SMH/Age Traveller section

There are immigrants, and then there are "expats". White people get to be expats. They get to live in other countries just to work and have a good time. Everyone else has to be an immigrant, with all of the job-stealing, dole-bludging stigma that that label carries. They're different.

It seems incredible to me that there can be one group of people that travels to have the time of their lives, and another group that travels to save their lives, and we think only one of those is acceptable. And, mind-bogglingly, it's the ones having fun.

Full: https://www.traveller.com.au/expat-or-i ... ide-h1iueq

Well, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Nepalese, Thai, Filipino, South African, Australian, American, Nigerian, Angolan, Somali, Eritrean and English (et al) workers in the Middle East are all referred to as Ex Pat workers in the local census reports. Go figure!

timmydownawell wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 7:26 am Ben Groundwater has written article on this subject in SMH/Age Traveller section

There are immigrants, and then there are "expats". White people get to be expats. They get to live in other countries just to work and have a good time. Everyone else has to be an immigrant, with all of the job-stealing, dole-bludging stigma that that label carries. They're different.

It seems incredible to me that there can be one group of people that travels to have the time of their lives, and another group that travels to save their lives, and we think only one of those is acceptable. And, mind-bogglingly, it's the ones having fun.

Full: https://www.traveller.com.au/expat-or-i ... ide-h1iueq

Ben seems to have 'immigrants' and 'refugees' confused. My grandparents were white... and were immigrants to Canada.

Semantics
a perfect example

by Nicholas Haggerty
May 27, 2020

What Does It Mean to Be an Expat, Anyway?

..the expats we consider flawed are more suitably objects of dinner table mockery

Foreigners, expats, immigrants, migrant workers. Will these class labels have the same meaning in the post-pandemic world?

The word expat is often used without spelling out who it refers to. John Lanchester, a British citizen raised in Hong Kong, captures the gist: “an ‘expatriate’ is a relatively affluent economic migrant, usually of Caucasian ethnicity, who is temporarily resident in a foreign country, who intends to return ‘home’, and who has little or no engagement with the place in which he currently lives.”

The expat phenomenon resembles in some ways a transnational form of gentrification. From the most culturally sensitive student of Taiwanese culture to the most clueless barfly, English speaking expats benefit in a material sense by virtue of this accident of birth, and for many of us, white faces. These sources of privilege are, of course, unearned.

On the surface we were critical of their arrogance, dubious claims to expertise on Taiwan, and shoddy or nonexistent Mandarin. Beneath the surface, we were keeping alive the tradition of the narcissism of small differences. A professor in our group gave a consensus diagnosis:

“They are here to live out the middle-class lives that they were born into but are now unable to live in the United States,” he said.

full https://international.thenewslens.com/f ... ays/135676

Not sure I understand the issue here.

An immigrant is typically applied to someone who moves from a lower income country to a higher income country. The expat label applies from someone who moves from a higher income country to a lower income country. Seems as if people are going out of their way to make this more than it is. They are just labels. There is no need to bring the race card into this when basic economics will do. A black American is still an expat despite being black. He doesn't suddenly become an "immigrant" because of skin tone. The blue passport is all that matters.

The locals can hate expats bringing their foreign customs just as much as they hate immigrants bringing foreign customs. Immigrant or expat, you are simply tolerated more if you have money to spend. Where is the issue?