

Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants? - karangoeluw
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration

======
Wogef
Nonsense. Expat indicates citizenship status. An expatriate is a person
temporarily residing in a country other than that of their citizenship. An
immigrants on the other hand is a person in the process of changing their
citizenship to their new resident country.

I've never heard a European immigrant referred to as an Expat in New York.

Here in China we are certianly not immigrants because it is made absolutely
clear we are expected to eventually leave.

If anything the question is why are some people called Expats and some called
Migrant Worker?

~~~
nandemo
> An immigrants on the other hand is a person in the process of changing their
> citizenship to their new resident country.

Nope. Immigrating usually implies permanent residence in the new country, not
necessarily getting citizenship.

~~~
Wogef
>Nope. Immigrating usually implies permanent residence in the new country, not
necessarily getting citizenship.

I stand corrected- but expats in the countries they are referred to as such
almost never have the option of permanent residence.

~~~
dalke
Here are examples of people using "expat" to include people with permanent
residency:

"Even international medical insurance companies admit that for expatriates
permanently living in France, it makes sense to join the national state health
insurance system." \- [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/expat-
health/8251102/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/expat-
health/8251102/Expat-guide-to-France-health-care.html)

"The 3 levels of residency status are: Permanent Resident – Expats who have
lived in Japan for 5 years or more out of a 10 year period, ..."
[http://aboutmovingtojapan.com/taxesforexpats.html](http://aboutmovingtojapan.com/taxesforexpats.html)

"If you are planning on moving to South Africa or are already one of the
expats permanently working or on extended vacation here, it is valuable to be
aware of the tax implications." \-
[http://www.dirmeik.co.za/blog/2014/10/08/expatriate-tax-
in-s...](http://www.dirmeik.co.za/blog/2014/10/08/expatriate-tax-in-south-
africa/)

[http://juliedawnfox.com/2013/07/05/expat-artists-
algarve/](http://juliedawnfox.com/2013/07/05/expat-artists-algarve/) \- a
British expat who lives full-time in Portugal

[http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2014/02/27/expat-
arti...](http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2014/02/27/expat-artist-
enjoys-sweet-smell-of-success/) \- another British expat, 18 years in Spain

[http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2013/11/meet-expat-writers-
li...](http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2013/11/meet-expat-writers-living-in-
yucatan/) \- various expat writers in Yucatan, including a Canadian who moved
there in the 1970s for love

------
gamechangr
The author has confused "race" with "education".

I am a white American who lived in the South Pacific. One of the things I
noticed is that the term "Expat" was used to refer to a qualified worker who
goes abroad to work for an international company for a specified amount of
time.

My neighbor and friend was an "Expat" Fijian working on a two year bank
rotation.

"Immigrant" was used mostly for migrant workers or workers that had an
undetermined timeframe.

~~~
dalke
That is the simplest definition of ex-pat, but there are other types of ex-
pats.

Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway are two of the most famous of the American
expat community in inter-war Europe. In
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202317)
I listed a couple examples of modern ex-pat artists.

As perhaps an extreme counter-example, take a look at Wikipedia's list of
American expats in Cuba
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_expatriates_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_expatriates_in_Cuba)
. It includes Assata Shakur, who "escaped from prison in 1979 and has been
living in Cuba, in political asylum, since 1984". She did not go there to work
for an international company, and she is there for an indefinite amount of
time.

~~~
gamechangr
True - There are always "extreme counter-examples" to every situation and I
enjoy people who like to be contrarians for the purpose of pointing out there
are other "less simple" or more complicated definitions.

It does appear that your post didn't really address my main point, which was
that "Education" separates the immigrant from the expat.

~~~
dalke
The article said:

> Top African professionals going to work in Europe are not considered expats.
> They are immigrants. Period. “I work for multinational organisations both in
> the private and public sectors. And being black or coloured doesn’t gain me
> the term “expat”. I’m a highly qualified immigrant, as they call me, to be
> politically correct,” says an African migrant worker.

For your statement to be meaningful, what more education does this highly
qualified African need to be considered an expat?

Do people go around asking for someone's educational level before assigning
them the label "expat" or "immigrant"? It's much easier to believe that the
main distinction is based on the more overt indicators of 'social class,
country of origin and economic status', than education level.

For example, the thousands of Iraqi doctors, engineers, and other PhD educated
people, who fled Iraq and moved to the US or European countries, are labeled
"immigrants" not "expats", on basis of their ethnicity, and not on personal
education.

To go back to the point of the Guardian piece, how is the term "expat" useful?
Why not "call them immigrants like everyone else"?

I am an American living in Sweden, and I do not work for a multinational
company who brought me here on temporary assignment. Do you consider me an
expat or an immigrant? Can you tell without knowing my education level? At
what point do I switch from one to the other?

------
asanwal
Supporters of the startup visa should emphasize how it will attract expats
instead of immigrants. Amirite?

