Why Would We Should Stop Calling Ourselves Expats

Who do you think of when you think of the word “expat?”

Perhaps, a “digital nomad” working from their laptop in Thailand or Bali, soaking up the rays and living a care-free, wanderlust lifestyle. 

Now, who do you think of when you think of the word “immigrant?”

Hmm...do you see a parallel here? I, for one, see something pretty harmful.

Let’s dive in.

Expat versus Immigrant

Pulling from Webster’s dictionary, expat and immigrant are defined as…

Expatriate: usually shortened to expat; a person who lives outside of their native country 

Immigrant: a person who lives permanently in a foreign country 

If both of these words have the same literary definition, then why do we call some people expats and everyone else immigrants?

Let’s look at another definition from Wikipedia…

Expat: an expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person residing in a country other than their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country. However, the term 'expatriate' is also used for retirees and others who have chosen to live outside their native country.

Immigrant: immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Research has found extensive evidence of discrimination against foreign born and minority populations in criminal justice, business, the economy, housing, health care, media, and politics in the United States and Europe

With more context, we learned...

That while the *literal* definitions of expat and immigrant are the same, the true meaning lies in how we culturally construct these words.

"Expat" carries immense privilege, intersecting across white privilege, socioeconomic privilege, passport privilege and western privilege. As stated in the Wikipedia definition, they are often “professionals, skilled workers, artists and retirees.” 

But, “immigrant” holds a completely different cultural construct with political, social and judiciary discrimination. Remember, anti-immigration was a huge platform for Trump's election and Brexit. Never did these politicians ever use the word "expat" in their anti-immigration policies. 

“Well expats don’t intend to relocate permanently like immigrants”

Did this counterargument pop up in your head? It’s fairly common and one that I also thought about.

At first glance, these definitions would differentiate between someone who moves to another country to work temporarily (expat) versus permanently (immigrant), right?

Well, InterNations surveyed expats in 2019 and a whopping 32 percent said that they planned to stay in a foreign country for “possibly forever” and 19 percent said they intended to stay “longer than five years.”

That is not wanderlust. That is immigration, my friends.

While "expats" have to deal with visas and the legalities of living long-term in a foreign country, they do not have to deal with the implicit bias, discrimination and prejudice that comes with being labeled as an immigrant, even though they are moving around the world in the exact same way. 

Their privilege has not only given them an entirely different label, but also allows them to navigate the world freely without the same political, social and judicial barriers as immigrants.  

Expats and privilege

There’s no difference between an expat and an immigrant besides the immense amount of privilege the former carries. Full-time travelers and “digital nomads” boast about calling other countries “home,” but rarely do they consider themselves immigrants.

The privilege of “expats” is immense. Considering most “expats” are from western nations, they already carry western privilege, socioeconomic privilege, white privilege (because most westerners are white), and passport privilege. 

Personally, I have delved in this romanticism of being an “expat.” Now I understand that I was only labeled an “expat” because of my white and western privilege that also granted me passport privilege to travel to over a hundred countries visa-free. Not to mention, being able to work from my computer anywhere in the world is a huge outward display of socioeconomic privilege. 

Expats are Immigrants. Period. 

By choosing to use "expat" instead of "immigrant," we are creating a harmful dichotomy where the former gets to frolic around the world inconsequentially while the latter continuously has to fight for the same freedom of movement. This is global white supremacy, where white immigrants get a pass at political and social barriers by being conveniently labeled as an "expat."

It is an incredible disservice to non-white immigrants to differentiate yourself by being a self-proclaimed “expat.” Why should you, or I, be excluded from the political debate on immigration if we benefit from freedom of movement? By continuing in this parallel, we are saying that freedom of movement is ok for us, but not for non-white world citizens.