Job Discussion Forums

[saudade]

[johnslat]

Dear dmb,
OK - not called but "seen as". By whom, may I ask? Certainly not by the governments of that region, certainly not by the locals, and certainly not by any other ex-pat I ever knew over there. So, just who "sees" them this way?
Regards,
John

[dmb]

Mainly my non Gulf Arab colleagues and students. The word immigrant came up in class. The students decided all their 'servants' were immigrants. I asked them if was. They responded 'no you're a teacher!'

[Marcoregano]

I'd say a similar connotation applies in HK, and how you are seen by locals depends to some extent on both skin colour and job-type. There is certainly a measure of racism and ignorance involved. Hongkongers are quite racist and there is a tendency to assume that anyone with dark skin - unless they move in 5-star circles, is an "immigrant", and quite likely an "illegal immigrant" at that. Foreign execs and TEFLers on the other hand would generally be regarded as expats, who are also usually regarded as temporary visitors, even though this may not be the case.

[Roger]

I never thought "expat" was the same as "immigrant", and I never felt guilty of being racist because I apply this term to myself.
The primary consideration in choosing to call myself "expat" is that I have come to a foreign country to impart special skills not reaidly available locally; once the local economy has trained its own qualified teachers it will dispense with imported teachers, and I will have to find a new line of work, or repatriate myself.
"Immigrants" usually come as permanent citizens of their host country. They may have special skills or not; more often, hwoever, they come in search of a brighter future - perhaps fleeing persecution or poverty.

[Dr.J]

I am rarely in a situation where I have to describe myself as an "immigrant" or "expatriate", instead of just saying where I am living and what I work as.

Using these words in a conversational context seems to be invoke an 'us and them' dichotomy, which is better left avoided.

[johnslat]

Dear dmb,
Well then - perhaps their seeing them this way was the result of their misunderstanding the meaning of the word:

"Main Entry: im�mi�grant
Pronunciation: 'i-mi-gr&nt
Function: noun
: one that immigrates : as a : a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence b : a plant or animal that becomes established in an area where it was previously unknown"

I doubt they thought their "servants" were going to (or even could) "take up permanent residence" there - i.e. become citizens.

Regards,
John

[Atlas]

[FGT]

Could a refugee be an immigrant but not an expat?

Had this conversation a while back with a New Zealand colleague - she said that the term "expat" couldn't apply to her because it stank of colonialism. I thought we were both expats, (living and working abroad).

[saudade]

One interesting thing is locale. To me, expatriates in Paris and Zurich conjure up thoughts of artists. In contrast, when using the word in Asia it smacks of Colonialism; after all, nobody went to Shanghai or Singapore to write a manifesto. But even in the romanticized version of "refugees" as portrayed in Casablanca, they were still called "refugees" and not "expatriates"...

We think of immigrant as permanent and expatriate as temporary, but there is nothing explicitly temporary in the definition....

"ex�pa�tri�ate �
v. ex�pa�tri�at�ed, ex�pa�tri�at�ing, ex�pa�tri�ates
v. tr.
To send into exile. See Synonyms at banish.
To remove (oneself) from residence in one's native land.

v. intr.
To give up residence in one's homeland.
To renounce allegiance to one's homeland.

n. (-t, -t)
One who has taken up residence in a foreign country.
One who has renounced one's native land."

[johnslat]

Dear suadade,

Hmm, first off, the verb is not relevant. Second, here's the definition from Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: 2ex�pa�tri�ate
Pronunciation: ek-'spA-trE-&t, -trE-"At
Function: adjective
: living in a foreign land

and here's the Oxford:

"expatriate

� noun /ekspatrit/ a person who lives outside their native country.

� adjective living outside one�s native country.

and here's the Cambridge:

Definition
expatriate [Show phonetics]
noun [C] (INFORMAL expat)
someone who does not live in their own country:
A large community of expatriates has settled there.

Regards,
Re-pat John
P.S. Most, if not all, of those Parisan expats in the 20s certainly didn't give up their citizenship and become French. If they had, they would have been Frenchmen/women, not expats.

[ntropy]

My sense is also that someone who permanently leaves their home country to settle permanently in a single country is an immigrant. Meanwhile, an expat is someone who is temporarily living in another country but has not broken ties and may return to home country. Of course, temporary sometimes become close to permanent.

My question is, however, as ESL teachers we usually move about many different countries through our careers. I wouldn't call us Immigrants. For those of you who don't associate yourselves with the word "expat," what word would you choose for yourselves? "Foreigner" sounds too exclusionary for my liking.

[Mike_2003]

I once used the word "g��men" (immigrant) to describe myself in Turkey and my Turkish friends/students laughed and told me I shouldn't use the term for similar reasons as have been descibed here. For them, a g��men/immigrant is someone who comes to Turkey to escape poor conditions in their own country. Here the word has negative connotations.

An expat is defined in my Turkish dictionary as "someone who leaves their own country to live in another foreign country".

So there seems to be no actually difference in meaning so why wouldn't they call me a "g��men"?

I think, regardless of what the dictionaries say, immigrants and expats are perceived as being slightly different, and not only in the English language.

[Lynn]

Living in Japan, Korea and Denmark, I never referred to myself as an ex-pat. Expat sounds like money.

[saudade]