makes ya think don't it?
White English "teachers" in Asia get really angry if you call them "migrant workers" instead.
They come to be a white face. They do not know how to "teach". Actual migrant worker in UAE is at least a labourer.
Yeah, sometimes I wonder if calling white English teachers migrant workers is an insult to actual migrant workers.
Most actual migrant workers don't show up and expect a job due to the color of their skin.
IMO the difference is Expats are still Chauvinists for their former home while immigrants are seeking to integrate themselves.
A lot of eastern europeans need to move to western or central Europe for work and plan on returning someday and no one calls them expats.
This may be true, but perhaps they should be referred to as expats? I don't know, it seems like popular definition says Expats refers to people who are in another country specifically for a work related reason, but older definitions imply it has more to do with being "exiled."
In my expirience the people who call themselves "Expats" are doing so because they have no desire to adopt the culture of their new home or integrate.
adopt the culture of their new home or integrate
If I do that where I live or anywhere else in Europe I'll be denied citizenship. Not so for another westerner. You're just making my point for me lol. Expat is just a racial/imperial signifier
I'm not sure why would get your citezenship denied, do you mean it would be revoked in your original country? Maybe I'm tired and misunderstanding you. You make good points and are probably right, the basis of my argument is just that the only people I've ever heard use the word "Expat" to describe themselves are westerners who think cultural integration is beneath them.
I’m not sure why would get your citezenship denied
I mean my application for citizenship here. If I thought cultural integration was beneath me I'll be spat on in the streets and my chances of deportation would like double.
who think cultural integration is beneath them
which is the most insulting thing you can do. In the west that's expected if not required.
We just fucking lazy and don't want to learn the local languages. Likewise, lol imagine wanting to live in a foreign country forever, why do that when we have our own. We know the job markets back home are shit, but the money is just not there.
I can only speak for Germany, but my impression (as a white person who was born here, so take it with a grain of salt) is that whether people use the expat label is about which job you come for. If you work in finance or software development or some other white collar job, you'll probably get labeled as an expat. If the work you do is harvesting asparagus or meatpacking or construction or some other manual labor, you'll get referred to as a Saisonarbeiter ("seasonal worker") or something similar instead, like Gastarbeiter ("guest worker") for people who came in the 50s-70s to mostly work in factory jobs. Expat is a much newer term, and it's exclusively used as the loan word. There is no German synonym for it, and no desire to find one. On the contrary, using the English loan word underlines that the people referred to as expats are seen as highly educated cosmopolitans.
I don't get the impression that these terms are delineated along where you come from - a Romanian or Ukrainian working at a fintech startup would also be known as an expat, same for people coming from outside of Europe.
So at first glance, it seems as if it's exclusively about class issues. But that's assuming a context where people are already aware what you do for a living. In many cases, people don't know and will just make assumptions instead - that you're a refugee if you look middle eastern and have an Arabian accent, that you're an expat if you look "Chinese" to them and so on. These are the assumptions normal people make, chuds will just go with whatever fearmongering narrative they picked up last, which usually means that nonwhite will flat-out be equated with illegal alien living off welfare.
immigrants are seeking to integrate themselves.
Not integrating into garbage western countries is praxis.
No I will not be answering questions.
I really hate the term expat and the dumb excuse that it's about not wanting to stay forever. I mean I thought I was just a Ukrainian immigrant. But it turns out for like a decade I was a Ukrainian expat while my family was sure we'd move back and only then did we become Ukrainian immigrants when we decided to stay. And then ofc I thought I was an Austro-Ukrainian immigrant when I moved countries for uni, but now I'm thinking that the quality of life is actually super nice in Vienna and it might be nice to find a job there eventually, so I guess actually I'm a Austro-Ukrainian expat after all! Silly me! I mean no one's ever called me anything but immigrant and Ausländer but it's nice that technically they were all wrong (including me) for over a decade.
Otoh I respect non-Westerners using expat. Heard some Jamaican author (I think) say he proudly uses expat because immigrant involves some degree of "immigrant angst". He just enjoyed moving country. Good on him, really. No borders, etc.
Nah my dad's job was prestigious enough we wouldn't get Gastarbeiter. But my main self-identity as a teenager was Ausländer, which now that I think about it is kinda depressing lol. "Yes hello I am foreigner and I hang out with foreigner friends, some of whom were actually born here but aren't white so they're considered foreigners anyway. Yay!" I didn't even really identify as Ukrainian lol, just as "not quite Austrian". 😂 Ah, immigrant angst.
Completely unrelated, but Vienna is pretty cool! Were you able to find any good orgs there?
I've never lived there actually! Most of my friends moved there after school, so I know my way around, but they're all libs... or became radicalised in 2020 and haven't joined anything (yet) lol
It used to only be used to refer to people who got exiled from their home country, don't really know when the use shifted to a wider meaning, it had to be sometime around or after WW2 as I do remember reading the expat community still referring primarily to exiles and foreign writers and journalists in the 1930s. I will say that immigrant technically means permanent moving, but there's absolutely anglocentrism and classism on who gets called an expat and who gets called a migrant worker and expat communities often came during decolonization to be sort of colonial holdovers.
Expats, aren't those the people larping as natives, taking all the good homes and driving rent prices up? God damn french and brittish expats everywhere. I literally cannot get a place in my home town because sexpats pay 3000 a month for a fucking studio shack.
Oh yeah, and the fact that public housing is being demolished to make place for luxury apartments targeted at expats.
The fact that working class people can't get any housing. Are literally just told to move to another town that's more 'suitable', while I was born here.
Damn I needed that of my chest. Fuck neoliberalism.
Not much to think about really, it's just that the things people do have different connotations regarding status depending on if they're rich or poor. So if people are gonna think about the two groups of people differently then they might as well use different words, right?
