Job Discussion Forums

[dmb]

The word for me conjures up garden tea parties at a British Consulate. All the people are Captains of Industry or Diplomats. All of them rich.

Do you think that the world of ESL should come under an umbrella term of "EXPAT"?
I live in a country in the Gulf where only about one fifth of the population is local. Another fifth are "western expats". The remaining three fifths are from India, Sri Lanka, Philipines, etc. Yet they are not called expats. They are seen as immigrants. Do you have to be white and western to be an EXPAT and do you think that you are one?

[Cleopatra]

There was a debate about this on one of the ME branches.

I agree with you that 'expat' has a quaint, colonial ring to it. I also agree that "Westerneers" in the Gulf use the term for themselves, but not for the Pakistanis or Philippinos, who are just 'foreign labour', a cut (or three) below the good white folk.

[bayabule]

[Joachim]

I think that in order to be an expat, you need a salary of at least 10 times the national average of wherever you are (more sometimes, depending on the country), plus rent free 5 star accomodation, transport, international school education for your children and servants paid for by your company.

Needless to say, ESL teachers don't fall into this category.

I think the major difference is, ESL teachers take jobs in foreign countries for the travel opportunities, while expats move abroad for employment opportunities.

The line does get somewhat blurred here in Hong Kong where the salaries are more similar.

[nolefan]

IMHO, I think EXPAT should be used in reference to how you feel towards your home country or your birth country. No matter what the case might be, wether one has a home country or is looking to find one... that is what an expat is.

in other words, I think "expat" is more about origin than current situation.

[woza17]

Well said Nolefan,
I think it is someone who has their own country's citizenship but chooses to live and work in another country for a long period of time. The word does conjure up colonial images. The expats that went back, could not fit in after they had retired. I don't want to go back. I used to love reading those books by Somerset Maughn (sorry spelling) and the like, so worried they would turn native.
I do insist we all dress for dinner, I don't care how hot it is clothes are in order.

[veiledsentiments]

It seems to me that the difference in interpretation of the word depends much on where you are from. If you are from the UK, and perhaps OZ, you have the transfer in meaning from the colonial past.

Americans don't have that image. To me, it means what my dictionary says 'living in a foreign land.'

I find nothing negative about it and always considered myself an expat when I taught in the ME - and I also considered all of the other workers as such too - no matter where they were from or what they were paid. To most Americans the word doesn't have any historical trappings.

VS

[Wolf]

Dictionary.com lists the word "expatriate" as "One who has taken up residence in a foreign country." Yep. That'd be me.

Traditionally such people were either the rich, or "vagabonds" of some sort (soldiers, sailors, etc.)

I don't go around using that word to describe myself in real life. Everyone else does that for me . I don't see it as an absolute fundemental core feature of my self identity. But the word applies.

[dmb]

Great minds think alike wolf I, too just popped over to dictionary.com and was just about to write the same definition. I also looked up immigrant "A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another" So the difference between expat and immigrant is the permanence? How would you explain the connotation to students? As I said in the OP in the ME the Asians are called immigrants. Yet alot of the Asians I know only come for a few years(longer than me). Of course some are permanent.

[Cleopatra]

From my experience, I would say that non "Western" expats spend far longer in the ME thatn their "Western" fly-by night counterparts.

[leeroy]

Informally speaking...

Couldn't an 'expat' be defined as "someone who works abroad because his/her expertise is needed"?

Whereas an 'immigrant' would be "someone who works abroad because their labour is cheaper"/"someone who lives abroad because they can no longer live (or don't want to live) in their country of origin"?

Where exactly ELTs come into this I don't quite know - it could quite possibly be a mixture of all three .

[johnslat]

Dear Cleopatra,
Hmm - 19 years in the ME for this "Western expat", 20 if we count in Iran. Not too shabby for a "fly-by-nighter".
OK, now that I've gotten the personal braggadochio out of the way, I'll agree. MOST non-Western expats do, I'd say, stay in the ME longer. The reasons:

1. Many of them are Muslims
2. Many of them make, relatively speaking, poor salaries
3. Many of them have more dependents to take care of
4. Many of them come from countries where there is little or no work and no "security net" provided by the governments.
5. Many of them are poorly educated, which severly limits their job choices.

There may be more reasons, but those are all that come to mind at the moment. But I think anyone working in a foreign country who intends to leave someday and not to become a national of that country should/could be called an ex-pat. Immigrants are those who intend to settle permanently in a new land.
As a side-note, many stay-at-homers I've encountered are unfamiliar with the term "ex-pat"; when I've used it, I've had some remark:

"Oh, you mean you're an ex-patriot."

Hmm, come to think on it, when I consider the "Patriot Act", maybe they were right.

Regards,
John

[saudade]

The American writers who lived in Paris in the twenties were also called expatriates I believe, as were the Dadaists in Switzerland, Paris, and New York during and between the wars. So I don't think it's always historically been a colonial word, at least in the States (which I think someone already pointed out). But I do agree that now it seems to conjure up exactly what you describe, dmb. At one point I was a bit lonely, and seeking other foreigners, used the word expatriate (erroneously) to describe "other people who speak English as a native language". They turned out to be all rich business people.

And I also looked the words up. The sense of exile associated with the word expatriate was kind of interesting...and doesn't seem to really apply to the corporate people.

[veiledsentiments]

dmb

In all of my years in the Middle East, I never heard the Asian workers referred to as 'immigrants.'

I certainly would never have referred to them as such.

VS

[johnslat]

Dear veiledsentiments,

"In all of my years in the Middle East, I never heard the Asian workers referred to as 'immigrants.'

I certainly would never have referred to them as such. "


Ditto.

Regards,
John