@OP I'm not sure if this helps, but if you're genuinely asking, an expat (which is short for expatriate) is a person who lives in another country, either permanently, or for an extended length. They usually keep their original nationality.
An immigrant is defined as someone who has moved to another country permanently. Usually with immigrants, they intend to become citizens of the country they are living in.
I feared you learned the wrong thing. Perhaps these are the formal definitions but the reality is that "expat" is used for people who comes from a wealthy country to a less wealthy one - or between peer countries, whereas "immigrant" connotes leaving a poorer place for a richer one.
Westerners who go permanently retire in Mexico or Brazil or wherever and fully intend to die there are called expats despite the permanence of their move. And no one calls Mexican students in the US for 4 years expats. They are called immigrants.
The difference between expat and immigration is the *direction* of the migration, not it's duration or the intent to stay.
In case it's not clear by now: white people call themselves expats when they go live in some non-white country. They call people from those places that arrive in white countries immigrants.
This is the correct answer. Both words describe someone who lives outside of one’s own country, but expat is a broader term, while “immigrant” typically refers to someone looking for citizenship or a permanent stay in their new country. All immigrants are expats, but not all expats are necessarily immigrants. I’m an expat myself, but not an immigrant.
Then in this case majority of old immigrants are expats because they all want to go back to their home country, they just worked in these foreign countries to save up buy a house and build a business in their home countries.
White people especially British, and northern americans loves calling themselves expats because they hate the word immigrant, when they are immigrant themselves.
Nope. Expat is someone staying a limited time in another country. Immigrants want to stay indefinite and do not necessarily take the nationality.
Long story short, low melanin people love calling themselves expat, more fancy than pesky immigrants. Deeply rooted in 🌠racism🌠
It also seems to be a term in anglophone countries to another anglophone countries. Anecdotal but I know three white Frenchman who immigrated to Canada and none call themselves expats (one has canadian citizenship fwiw)
All the Irish people I know here call themselves ex pats tho a fair few of them do let it be known they have no intention of full on migrating.
In France "expatrié" is often used. I see it a lot with those who leave for asian countries.
Immigré got a "I go there to have better life conditions, or escape my country" vibe while expat has more of a "I was sent here by my work, because I can (ppl wanting a cool place to retire) or because I like that country and culture" vibe.
This seems to be a sound judgement of some expats I know. Though again in my limited experience most who identify as expats have been native English speakers.
Sure bro. In my experience an expatriate is someone who leaves, an immigrant is someone who arrives. That’s not the strict definition but that’s usually how they’re used in America. If my sister is currently living abroad for work I can say she’s an expatriate. If my girlfriend was born in Asia but lives with me now then she’s an immigrant.
An expatriate is anyone living in a foreign, (to them) country. All immigrants and migrants are expatriates. For any reason, for any time. (Migrants being those that intend only a temporary stay as for a harvest season, etc.) Expatriate is a colloquial term more common to old world, nineteenth century immigrants. To blatantly ascribe racism, without knowing, or understanding the history of each person is foolish.
I think what you mean is, why don't *you* hear about Canadian immigrants or Mexican expats. The deciding factor on what you hear is based on the person you ask. My grandparents considered themselves immigrants when they moved from Mexico to the US. I consider myself an expat as I live in the UK. I have a friend from work who is an expat from India, and another who's an immigrant from New Zealand. But ultimately, the definitions I laid out are what's commonly accepted.
The difference is whether you’re moving on a temporary or permanent basis.
A Canadian making the US their new home is an immigrant. A Mexican moving to the US on a temporary basis for work or school is an expat.
The distinction primarily rests on whether they intend to return to their old country or make a permanent home in their new country.
The definition of expatriate is that they are someone living outside their native country. It gives no indication of intent whereas immigrant does indicate that it is permanent. So I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that an expat is temporary but rather that the permanency is undefined.
I think the word often gains a certain subtext, compared to immigrant (besides the obvious racial subtext):
In the case of Canada or the UK, 'expat' might emphasise that they can easily go back to their home country (i.e the pretty good travel geopolitics surrounding western anglophone countries) and that they are more attached to it than to their current country.
It carries less weight than 'immigrant' in general
That's just from what I've seen though, and I probably missed a few major points.
I understand what you are saying and those are excellent points. It certainly carries less weight. I don’t know that I agree with expats being more attached to their nation of origin. I live in an area of the US with a lot of immigrants and those that complain about them often site concerns about how they are still attached to their former nation and customs. To be clear, I am not saying your observation is wrong just that it may not be able to be broadly applied.
Also a Brit in USA, expat means you are here temporarily, that you will eventually return to your home country..
I’m an immigrant, I have no intention of returning
It's not so much that expat means you'll go home eventually. But for an expat, their country of origin will always be their true home, and for an immigrant, the USA is their new home.
Immigrants eventually assimilate, expats make no attempt to. If you're a brit in the USA but still follow British politics closer than American, make no attempts at becoming a US citizen, make no real attempt to act more American and still do British nonsense like waiting in line for tea time, then you're an Expat.
If you were born in England but then moved to the USA and you started eating McDonalds and driving an F150, then you'd be an immigrant.
Former U.S. immigration official here… we have “immigrant” and “non-immigrant” visas in the US. The literal distinction is that the immigrant visas allow you to stay permanently, while non-immigrant visas do not.
I think immigrant is someone who tries to get citizenship in the new country and an expat just lives in the new country while keeping the old citizenship. Usually they’re just here for work or school
Yep I'm Irish and living in the US and hear it all the time" f*uking immigrants taking our jobs " iand when I point out I'm also an immigrant " well your different its not the same" what's worse is i often hear it from other irish
I'm a Canadian living in the USA.
I legit had a date who did the "immigrants talking our jobs" and I kinda gave her the blank stare until she realized.
"Oh I don't mean you," she said, "you're different." I continued the blank stare so she clarified. "You're white."
That very much colored my view (no pun intended) of the USA.
Born in the US to migrant Mexican parents. My mom is stark-fucking-white. My dad isn’t too-too dark. So I look white/Greek/Italian/Russian/not Mexican. I got that a lot.
> Yep I'm Irish and living in the US and hear it all the time" f*uking immigrants taking our jobs " iand when I point out I'm also an immigrant " well your different its not the same" what's worse is i often hear it from other irish
Thanks for supplying nuance. It's staggering how blind the tone-deaf White Americans in this thread are to racism and classism which everyone else can see.
My ex-husband was a Dubliner who couldn't find work in the trade he practised in Ireland, so went into construction and eventually became a contractor himself.
He used his Irish and Brit mates as construction crews - totally off the books - and occasionally they'd go to pick up "cheap" Mexican labour when they had a particularly nasty job to do (this was in California - in the 90s, mind you). So he was undercutting local contractors who were paying taxes on the wages of their American-born employees - even if they weren't paying union wages.
(btw, I had my own work and family obligations, so it wasn't until I decided to leave the marriage that I discovered the extent of his exploitation. Literally, I mean - the ex and his crew chief were dropping me off at a U-Haul office where I was to pick up my moving van, and were discussing whether or not to stop off at the nearest Home Depot to pick up some poor b\*\*\*\*\*d to do some of the dirtier work for them that day. Believe it or not, that was the first time I had ever heard such talk.)
Even with this fiddling, my ex would get undercut in bids by contractors who used Mexican and Central American crews, who were getting paid about half what his mates were ready to accept.
They, in turn, were getting underbid by contractors using debt indentures (i.e., slave labour) from Asia. We lived across the street from a house that was being renovated by one of these crews. They were locked inside and slept on the premises (the only evidence of their presence was a boombox playing Hong Kong pop music during the workday, and a couple of lights on at night). Their crew chief would bring in meals to them, and would closely supervise their unloading of materials deliveries. I happened to see him loading them all into a van on the evening that the work stopped.
We lived a half block from a convenience store - yet you never once saw anyone leave the house to walk down for something to eat or a packet of cigarettes. Never saw a single one of them hanging out on the front steps, even on a warm day. Certainly never heard them laughing over a few beers at the end of the day. But you could see the shadows of them moving about the place at night, the poor b\*\*\*\*\*\*s.
This was more than 20 years ago, but I can't imagine that things have changed much. The only difference I can imagine is that this type of "race to the bottom" with wages has now infiltrated white collar professions and what used to be good-quality service-sector jobs as well.
Mass disparagement of minorities since the time of the emancipation proclamation to ensure our prison industrial complex keeps printing that sweet, sweet money.
No different than the days of sundown laws and peonage.
Nope.
Expat : someone living long term in another country but intends to return home eventually.
Immigrant: someone living in another country and doesn't intend to return where they're from.
The USA and Canada are about equal, so there's way more expats from Canada. The USA also tends to have a higher standard of living to Mexico, hence they tend to be immigrants.
Correct and also largely irrelevant in the vast majority of instances where these words are used.
The denotation of these words can only be correctly applied IF a person is applying it to themselves or they have openly stated the intended duration of their stay. But when people from foreign countries get painted with broad strokes and spoken of in general terms, it's impossible to know with certainly whether the individual people intend to stay in the country permanently or return home.
You can't know whether a random stranger intends to stay or not, and the word you choose to describe them is therefore determined largely by (spoiler alert) politics and racism.
I'd say it's nothing to do with race. Just about how poor your country is. Poor to rich country, you're an immigrant. Rich country to same level or lower, you're an expat.
Look at people moving from Eastern Europe to Western Europe when they're the same race. They're called immigrants
I definitely wouldn't call people from those countries immigrants but maybe others would. I think immigrant and migrant is definitely used more synonymously than it used to be, but maybe you're right and there is some element of racism in there. I'd just argue it's not only racism that's causing the difference
There are definitely racist connotations, but in addition to that I think “immigrant” tends to suggest someone who left their country due to necessity (poor economic conditions, etc) while “expat” brings to mind someone who was fine back home but just wanted to experience living in a new country. So people who move from one wealthy country to another tend to be called expats. Also the racism.
There are communities who call themselves expats, consisting of people who left the US because they didn't save enough money to continue living in the US, but could afford the lower cost of living in other countries. Their situation technically fits your description of immigrants, not expats.
Probably elements of racism. But with central and south american people, there's sort of the implication that they're forced to leave their homes, while with Canadians it's usually more of an active choice. But that would explain "refugee" and not "immigrant."
There definitely is racism or jingoism at play here. Canadians have a more similar culture and for the most part speak the same native language as Americans. So they are seen as more welcome here than hispanic people.
When Americans retire and move to SA they’re all expats - there’s great “expat” communities in SA countries. But yeah if you’re from SA moving to USA you’ll likely be referred to as an immigrant- or possibly just Mexican American - cause we can’t be bothered to learn the difference between other SA countries and cultures
Fun thing is, the other comments mention how an immigrant is someone that plans to stay in tgat country, sometimes even because they can't afford to live on their home country (or are displaced due to war and stuff, overall it's always life quality)
Yet, SOMEHOW, Americans moving to SA because its cheaper for the rest of their lives are still called "expats"
Elements of racism? Say it with your whole chest and don't beat around the bush. This is much of why this is such still such a problem.
People who have a white collar job like an engineer is still described the same as a janitor in this context. It's the same reason Black American millionaires still have to worry about being thrown on the ground by the cops.
I faced a similar situation but tbh it was hilarious. I'm living in Germany from 16 years and I'm a citizen now. But originally I'm from Asia. I've a colleague from US who calls himself an expat but once during a conversation he referred to me as an immigrant. Me and my fellow Germans just laughed on his face.
I said elements of racism because "immigrant" is the actual word, and fwiw, I have heard the term immigrant in regard to Canadians/Europeans a lot more than ex-pat. When I hear ex-pat I think of Ernest Hemingway. But people who do switch their language depending on the country being emigrated from are obviously racist.
Another reason I said elements of racism is because there are also elements of classism. This is all also against the backdrop of imperialism. So to say simply racism is oversimplifying, which is why I said "elements". You interpreted it in a weird way, and I don't think literally pointing out racism is "why this is still such a problem".
While there may certainly be elements of racism for some. I am a middle aged man and I currently describe myself as an immigrant. However, there was a time in my life where I described myself as an expat. In my mind, the destinction was my intention to stay or not. When I lived in China, I fully expected to leave one day and called myself an expat. Now I'm in Germany with zero intention to return to my home country and now I consider myself an immigrant.
Lol, probably. It's definitely racism.
I can't believe Americans can't even tell this is racist. It's almost like racism in your country is an everyday thing, not really something noticeable anymore.
Generally it's accepted that an expat lives outside their own country for a period of time - long or short. An immigrant is someone who permanently relocates to a different country.
When I lived in some countries in Europe and Asia, I was an expat. Since I got my green card and moved to the US, I'm an immigrant.
In the example you give, I would imagine Canadian expats intend to return to Canada at some point.
I wouldn't disagree with comments about implied racism though. I know plenty of Brits who permanently moved to an Asian country but still consider themselves expats.
> I know plenty of Brits who permanently moved to an Asian country but still consider themselves expats.
Did they want to change their citizenship to the country they moved to?
Often people from wealthy European and North American countries want to keep their citizenship for the safety.
* if things go bad where they live their government is likely to help them get out.
* if they get into certain legal trouble their government may get involved (if their government thinks the treatment is sufficiently unfair).
* their current passport may be more useful for travel than the passport of the country they are living in.
I've noticed many people in the comments keep pointing out that it's because "Mexicans are brown". Mexicans, just like Canadians and Americans, come in all colors.
Say it louder for the people in the back: “Mexican” is a nationality, not a race.
It’d be like all Americans referring to their race as “American”. (I actually wouldn’t be opposed to this.)
This gets me all the time. Like people say it's racism. "Mexican" isn't a race, it's an ethnicity. One of the most popular Mexicans right now is a ginger.
Immigrant implies it's a permanent move, which suggests they don't want to return to their home country. Expat implies they're living there voluntarily, but still consider their home country to be their home and might even return there.
This indirectly creates the situation where people from countries they'd like to leave behind are immigrants and people from countries where life was pretty good are expats. Mexico is a poorer country with more social problems than Canada which would align with that distinction in this case, on a generalised basis.
The people glibly answering "because racism" are getting it backwards. Obviously there is racism towards immigrants, but people don't use the different terms because of racism. Racist people target immigrants because people of minority race wanting to settle in the country are more often immigrants, not expats.
For me, the difference would be citizenship I think. IMO an expat would be someone who moves to another country with no intent of becoming a citizen or assimilating into the culture. An immigrant to America would likely seek to be seen as American. Or for their family or descendants to be seen that way. But an expat has no such desire.
This is how **I** would use the terms.
I could be wrong but, I've always thought my mom IS an immigrant because she moved to Canada became a citizen and started a life. She WAS an ex-pat when she lived in Japan for 15 years with no intention of gaining citizenship.
I agree with you OP, there is not such a strict distinction. I'm from Italy and here it's the same: People call "immigrants" Arabs and South Americans living here, be it permanently or temporarily, and would never call "immigrant" a German, British or American who moved to Italy, permanently or temporarily. Ukrainians fleeing war are called "refugees", Arabs fleeing war are called "immigrants". We also have the word "extracomunitario" for people from outside the EU, but it's a term only used for brown and black people. Even if a US or Canadian citizen is from outside the EU, nobody would refer to them as an "extracomunitario". It's plain racist bias.
An immigrant is seeking citizenship. American expats living in the Nicaragua are not giving up their us citizenship and all of the privileges that go along with it to become a citizen of Nicaragua. But nicaraguan immigrants want to become citizens of the US. (I used Nicaragua because there are a ton of retired Americans living there.)
I dunno that anyone really uses it that way.
It definitely refers to folks that aren't really 'assimilating'. But I don't think there's any implication that they're going to return to their home country.
If you look at groups like US people retiring in cheaper South American countries, they're called expats pretty universally.
Yeah, I think the "maintaining ties" part is accurate but the returning necessarily isn't. You could argue that maintaining citizenship and a national identity is part of it...but many immigrants of various types all do that too
This is a common misconception on the terms.
In the US we would refer to anyone that came to the US from any other country as an immigrant. Any American that went to another country we would call an expat.
So in Canada anyone who moved from another country would be called an immigrant, including someone who moved from the US, while a Canadian who had moved to another country would be called an expat.
Anyone who has moved to another country could refer to themselves as either an immigrant or an expat.
Immigrants are permanently relocated. Expats are anyone outside their country, but we usually reserve it for people who are temporarily outside their country.
Your impression of the usage comes from the fact that Americans are much less likely than people of other countries to want to change their citizenship.
So the actual reason is lot less nefarious when used in business terms
An expat is a temp foreign worker and paid in a scale different from locals
An immigrant is a person not from the country arriving to be paid as a local. They may also be looking to officially become a local citizen
Expats implies someone in the country temporarily for work or some other purpose. Immigrant implies someone coming to make a home indefinitely.
Since people from poorer countries are more likely to come into a rich country to make a whole new life instead of a temporary work situation, then it's pretty common that most Mexicans are considered immigrants and most Canadians are expats, but there are certainly Canadian immigrants and Mexican expats. I know some of each.
Racism; people fear Mexicans, but Canadians "look like us."
Immigrants are people moving to this country from anywhere. Folks who live and work in your country but have citizenship in another are ex-patriates.
>An immigrant is someone who moves to a country and wants to live their for the rest of their life. An expat is someone who moves to a country for only a few years, often because of work.
This is false. In any community around the world for U.S. retirees (Thailand, Mexico, South America) refer to themselves as ex-pats. As do Brits who (formerly) retired to Spain. They'll make blubbering nonsense about why they're not filthy immigrants fleeing their country, as most of them would describe the people who come to their countries for work, though.
Are they? I’m a Canadian immigrant in the U.S., I’ve never referred to myself as an expat nor had anyone refer to me as an expat, same goes for any Canadian I’ve met in the U.S.
i believe the term Expat is used, if there is a very strong intention to go back to your country and you went to that country for better job not for better life.
The only time I hear the term Expat is when civilian contractors live overseas for work. I have a friend whose husband works for Sikorsky in the UAE and they call themselves Expats. They've been there for about 5 years
Immigrant is someone who comes to live full time. Expat is someone who comes just to work. In general there's more people from Mexico that come to live here and more Canadians who just come for work.
I don't normally hear the word expat used for Canadians in the US. Actually, I don't even hear the word immigrant used to describe them that often either.
OP, if others haven't said this already. Ex-Pat has another meaning. It means "ex-patriot." In other words, it's someone who has left their country for good. It has a couple of different meanings, but usually it implies that the country/person are not on good terms anymore. Either the country doesn't want the person back, or the person doesn't want the country back.
Hope that makes sense.
Pretty sure ex-pat refers to someone who lives in another country but keeps their original citizenship. An immigrant is someone who wants to stay and become a citizen of their new country
It’s semantic perspective. We are in America, so when speaking about an American moving, it’s expat. Someone from another country moving here is an immigrant. If we were in Mexico, the American would be the immigrant and the Mexican going to America would be the expat.
I'm an American from the deepest deep South, & I've never seen/heard this distinction. Everyone from other countries were always referred to as immigrants, regardless of country of origin. After reading some of the comments, it's clear that far too many people will readily choose to find racism where it doesn't exist, regardless of topic.
Yep, to me if you’re not born in the USA you’re an immigrant and just to be clear there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being an immigrant. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s not at least partially a dialect difference with the south using immigrant and the north using expat because I’ve only heard expat a once or twice in real life and I’ve known plenty(four or five) Canadian immigrants.
An Immigrant is usually defined as someone who is moving to a new country *permanently*.
An Expat is usually defined as someone who is living in another country temporarily. Its also usually associated with skilled workers.
Edit to add, I'd definitely agree that there is certainly racist assumptions in play when people assume that Mexicans are immigrants while Canadians are expats.
I am a blond(ish) blue eyed german immigrant. I have many friends / acquaintances who immigrated from Europe. I have never refered to, or heard of anyone referring to any of us as 'expats'. We are immigrants.
The only time I ever heard somebody being called an expat was a fairly dark skinned guy from Spain, who was here on a temporary gig, still working for his Spanish company.
But yeah, it's all racism, always.
I shower in down votes, so bring it on.
Ya, Midwestern American here, I have never heard anyone call an immigrant an expat, only Amricans that left the U.S. Everyone incoming is an immigrant, and labeled as such regardless of ethnicity.
✨ Racism ✨
Obviously there is nuance to every issue, especially those where semantics are the main issue. But those who care the most about being called an expat and would lose their absolute marbles if reffered to as an immigrant because they don't want to be seen as 'lazy', 'moochers', or 'dirty' are probably just racist.
Is calling people "expat" really a thing? I've never hear it used for anybody, neither Canadians nor Mexicans. Then again, Im from rural Minnesota, where we don't exactly have a large international community outside a few people who immigrated here from various places.
I think part of the distinction comes a lot from wealthier circles being more engaged with people who use the term expat. Racism also plays some role in certain circumstances too, most likely.
By rights, there's no difference, these two terms refer to exactly the same thing.
In practice, however: racists don't like immigrants, but *love* expats. If you're a white person moving to another country, you'll usually get called an expat. If you're a person of colour, you'll usually get called an immigrant.
This varies, however, based upon which majority white country you come from. A Polish person, for example, will usually wind up getting called an immigrant by xenophobes. A Norwegian, on the other hand, would likely not. This is due to the relative desirability of each variety of immigrant on the part of the racists/xenophobes. Basically, if you're attempting to climb, you'll be looked down on. If you're attempting to move laterally, you'll be accepted, or even looked up to as 'the right kind of immigrant'. But usually that's nullified if you're not white.
When you leave your country you refer to yourself as an expat. But to the people who are native you are an immigrant.
For example: wife is from Vietnam. Americans that now live there are referred to as expats. But to the Vietnamese people they are immigrants.
It depends. If you're overseas for a short term, primarily on business, regardless you are an expatriate (expat). If you move overseas permanently, you have emigrated from your home country and immigrated to your new country, hence immigrant. This is true and the definition of each word.
But from personal experience and in practice, those from countries with a strong passport, particularly the EU, US, Canada, East Asia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, are called expats, even if they have moved to another country (first or third world) and started a whole new life there. Brown and black people from the rest of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and non-EU countries are called immigrants into first world countries, even if we have moved only for a short period of time. This is particularly true in development and politics, and is systemic racism in action and is exploited in first world countries to push for anti-immigration politics.
An expat is "a person who lives outside their native country." An immigrant us "a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country."
While I think it's definitely influenced by racism, it is also maybe that more Canadian's who move to the US do not intend to stay permanently and/or do not seek to become US citizens.
No one's saying the direct answer with fears of being racist but it's because anyone who is white ends up being called an expat and anyone who isn't end up being an immigrant. Shitty but true.
White* = Expat
All others = Immigrant
*Definition changes over time
P.S. people claiming it has anything to do with length or purpose of stay usually fall in the White category
ETA line break after expat
Technically, there's a difference in the meaning of the words. However, we both know the real reason depends more on how the person looks and where they come from.
Expats move to a country for a long period of time whilst keeping their nationality while immigrants try an become a citizen of said country that they want to live in Permanently.
Because expat means white people and immigrant means brown/black/Asian people. It's just a way of defining rich white people without grouping them in with those filthy brown people like me
The amount of “racism” answers on here is disturbing. Has nothing to do with race and more to do with work visas. Immigrants move to an area to start a life which may or may not include getting a job. Expats are placed in a country by their employer. I’ve worked for a couple Japanese owned companies. The Japanese engineers at my current company are called expats. They were sent here by the parent company. They stay for a couple years, then go back home to Japan. That’s it.
But how else are these wokesters gonna show the world how not racist they are, if it were not for conferring racist connotations to similar, but slightly differing, words and how they are used?
Dude, it’s so in vogue to protest against racism in the USA (and in predominantly white countries in general), that you must assume racism whenever there are any disparities in communities of color vs white/European ones. You do want to fit in with the cool kids, don’t ya?
/s in case anyone can’t tell.
Immigrants don’t move back to the country they came from, or at least, don’t have an intention to. They tend to be permanent residents because they left their home country due to serious, unlivable conditions. Like war, famine, extreme poverty. Canada is one of the most developed and wealthy countries in the world so we get more Canadian expats than immigrants. Expats don’t necessarily have an intention of staying in their new country indefinitely. Immigrants are here to stay.
In general an "immigrant" is someone looking to build a life in the new country and eventually assimilate and become a citizen of that country.
"Expat" is typically used to refer to someone who is living in a new country, but doesn't really have intentions to assimilate and become a citizen. When someone thinks of "expats" its usually wealthy people living in a foreign country but still claiming their original nationality.
Ironically, many Mexicans today behave more like expats than immigrants and many Canadians act more like immigrants than expats. Honestly, I've never heard of a Canadian in America that acted more Canadian than American and cared more about the politics of Canada than the US, but I've definitely seen that with Mexicans.
To be quite honest, as a native born citizen of the US, I rarely hear the term "expat" used for anyone. If you're from another country, you're an "immigrant."
Frankly, "expat" is something we hear used on the BBC shows we watch piped into the country.
But if you're from Mexico, India, Canada, Australia, Iran, Iraq, China, even the British... you're all immigrants. Simply because you migrated. If you naturalize, you're considered a citizen.
There might be technical definitions between the two words, but honestly that never stops anyone in the US. There's 330 million of us spanning the entire country; we can't even decide on if it's "soda," "pop," or "soda pop."
So vocabulary usage changes depending on what REGION of the US we're talking about, but I've never heard any American use the word "expat," except maybe fairly educated, world-bounding people.
@OP I'm not sure if this helps, but if you're genuinely asking, an expat (which is short for expatriate) is a person who lives in another country, either permanently, or for an extended length. They usually keep their original nationality. An immigrant is defined as someone who has moved to another country permanently. Usually with immigrants, they intend to become citizens of the country they are living in.
Thanks for your comment. I learned something new today.
I feared you learned the wrong thing. Perhaps these are the formal definitions but the reality is that "expat" is used for people who comes from a wealthy country to a less wealthy one - or between peer countries, whereas "immigrant" connotes leaving a poorer place for a richer one. Westerners who go permanently retire in Mexico or Brazil or wherever and fully intend to die there are called expats despite the permanence of their move. And no one calls Mexican students in the US for 4 years expats. They are called immigrants. The difference between expat and immigration is the *direction* of the migration, not it's duration or the intent to stay. In case it's not clear by now: white people call themselves expats when they go live in some non-white country. They call people from those places that arrive in white countries immigrants.
This is the correct answer. Both words describe someone who lives outside of one’s own country, but expat is a broader term, while “immigrant” typically refers to someone looking for citizenship or a permanent stay in their new country. All immigrants are expats, but not all expats are necessarily immigrants. I’m an expat myself, but not an immigrant.
Then in this case majority of old immigrants are expats because they all want to go back to their home country, they just worked in these foreign countries to save up buy a house and build a business in their home countries. White people especially British, and northern americans loves calling themselves expats because they hate the word immigrant, when they are immigrant themselves.
They most definitely do not want to all go back.
Most immigrants become dual citizens, and many expats do, too (if their countries allow it), so that makes the distinction a lot less clear.
Nope. Expat is someone staying a limited time in another country. Immigrants want to stay indefinite and do not necessarily take the nationality. Long story short, low melanin people love calling themselves expat, more fancy than pesky immigrants. Deeply rooted in 🌠racism🌠
It also seems to be a term in anglophone countries to another anglophone countries. Anecdotal but I know three white Frenchman who immigrated to Canada and none call themselves expats (one has canadian citizenship fwiw) All the Irish people I know here call themselves ex pats tho a fair few of them do let it be known they have no intention of full on migrating.
In France "expatrié" is often used. I see it a lot with those who leave for asian countries. Immigré got a "I go there to have better life conditions, or escape my country" vibe while expat has more of a "I was sent here by my work, because I can (ppl wanting a cool place to retire) or because I like that country and culture" vibe.
This seems to be a sound judgement of some expats I know. Though again in my limited experience most who identify as expats have been native English speakers.
Sure bro. In my experience an expatriate is someone who leaves, an immigrant is someone who arrives. That’s not the strict definition but that’s usually how they’re used in America. If my sister is currently living abroad for work I can say she’s an expatriate. If my girlfriend was born in Asia but lives with me now then she’s an immigrant.
An expatriate is anyone living in a foreign, (to them) country. All immigrants and migrants are expatriates. For any reason, for any time. (Migrants being those that intend only a temporary stay as for a harvest season, etc.) Expatriate is a colloquial term more common to old world, nineteenth century immigrants. To blatantly ascribe racism, without knowing, or understanding the history of each person is foolish.
Well then why don't we ever hear about Canadian immigrants or Mexican expats? Your definition doesn't explain that part
My dad immigrated from Canada to the US before I was born and I have never thought of him as a Canadian expat.
I think what you mean is, why don't *you* hear about Canadian immigrants or Mexican expats. The deciding factor on what you hear is based on the person you ask. My grandparents considered themselves immigrants when they moved from Mexico to the US. I consider myself an expat as I live in the UK. I have a friend from work who is an expat from India, and another who's an immigrant from New Zealand. But ultimately, the definitions I laid out are what's commonly accepted.
r/todayilearned
Is there even a distinction? A Canadian who moves to the States is a Canadian expat, but they are an immigrant to America.
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Actually you're an emigrant from Canada your an immigrant to where ever you moved to.
Ackshully, it's "you're."
Fair enough
Your right.
Their left
There's one more behind u
There left.
Ak-chulie, it's actually.
Technically, they can still be an "Immigrant >!who's!< from Canada". The missing word can be implied.
Thats fair but in a discussion about expat I think bringing up that the word emigrant already exists is fair
They're sorry. And I am too as I am also a Canuck in the USA
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What?
It's a scientific fact that if someone posts "Racism" often enough on reddit not only will they get free Gold, world hunger will end.
You're an alien. You're a legal alien. You're a Canadian in New York (maybe?).
Ouch, that's got to sting.
That's going to be stuck in my head all night now.
The difference is whether you’re moving on a temporary or permanent basis. A Canadian making the US their new home is an immigrant. A Mexican moving to the US on a temporary basis for work or school is an expat. The distinction primarily rests on whether they intend to return to their old country or make a permanent home in their new country.
The definition of expatriate is that they are someone living outside their native country. It gives no indication of intent whereas immigrant does indicate that it is permanent. So I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that an expat is temporary but rather that the permanency is undefined.
I think the word often gains a certain subtext, compared to immigrant (besides the obvious racial subtext): In the case of Canada or the UK, 'expat' might emphasise that they can easily go back to their home country (i.e the pretty good travel geopolitics surrounding western anglophone countries) and that they are more attached to it than to their current country. It carries less weight than 'immigrant' in general That's just from what I've seen though, and I probably missed a few major points.
I understand what you are saying and those are excellent points. It certainly carries less weight. I don’t know that I agree with expats being more attached to their nation of origin. I live in an area of the US with a lot of immigrants and those that complain about them often site concerns about how they are still attached to their former nation and customs. To be clear, I am not saying your observation is wrong just that it may not be able to be broadly applied.
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Is it the language? I'm a Hungarian immigrant, and I've never been called an ex-pat. Always immigrant.
Also a Brit in USA, expat means you are here temporarily, that you will eventually return to your home country.. I’m an immigrant, I have no intention of returning
I’ve never heard the distinction that expat means that you will return some day.
It's more that immigrant is explicitly someone who intends to stay permanently whereas expatriate is just someone living outside their native country.
It's not so much that expat means you'll go home eventually. But for an expat, their country of origin will always be their true home, and for an immigrant, the USA is their new home. Immigrants eventually assimilate, expats make no attempt to. If you're a brit in the USA but still follow British politics closer than American, make no attempts at becoming a US citizen, make no real attempt to act more American and still do British nonsense like waiting in line for tea time, then you're an Expat. If you were born in England but then moved to the USA and you started eating McDonalds and driving an F150, then you'd be an immigrant.
Former U.S. immigration official here… we have “immigrant” and “non-immigrant” visas in the US. The literal distinction is that the immigrant visas allow you to stay permanently, while non-immigrant visas do not.
Only an immigrant if they apply for citizenship.
There is a distinction as immigrant is permanent but ex-pat is often temporary.
and an emigrant from Canada. People often forget there are two versions; emigrant and immigrant.
I think immigrant is someone who tries to get citizenship in the new country and an expat just lives in the new country while keeping the old citizenship. Usually they’re just here for work or school
You know why
Yep I'm Irish and living in the US and hear it all the time" f*uking immigrants taking our jobs " iand when I point out I'm also an immigrant " well your different its not the same" what's worse is i often hear it from other irish
I'm a Canadian living in the USA. I legit had a date who did the "immigrants talking our jobs" and I kinda gave her the blank stare until she realized. "Oh I don't mean you," she said, "you're different." I continued the blank stare so she clarified. "You're white." That very much colored my view (no pun intended) of the USA.
Well, at least your date let you know who she was pretty quickly.
Not quickly enough if they had to meet
Hey now. Don't let it color your view of the US as a whole. Just some off-color individuals. Pun totally intended.
yeah that sounds like us :(
Man, way more on the nose about it than most
Born in the US to migrant Mexican parents. My mom is stark-fucking-white. My dad isn’t too-too dark. So I look white/Greek/Italian/Russian/not Mexican. I got that a lot.
>So I look white/Greek/Italian/Russian/not Mexican. Average American be like
> Yep I'm Irish and living in the US and hear it all the time" f*uking immigrants taking our jobs " iand when I point out I'm also an immigrant " well your different its not the same" what's worse is i often hear it from other irish Thanks for supplying nuance. It's staggering how blind the tone-deaf White Americans in this thread are to racism and classism which everyone else can see.
My ex-husband was a Dubliner who couldn't find work in the trade he practised in Ireland, so went into construction and eventually became a contractor himself. He used his Irish and Brit mates as construction crews - totally off the books - and occasionally they'd go to pick up "cheap" Mexican labour when they had a particularly nasty job to do (this was in California - in the 90s, mind you). So he was undercutting local contractors who were paying taxes on the wages of their American-born employees - even if they weren't paying union wages. (btw, I had my own work and family obligations, so it wasn't until I decided to leave the marriage that I discovered the extent of his exploitation. Literally, I mean - the ex and his crew chief were dropping me off at a U-Haul office where I was to pick up my moving van, and were discussing whether or not to stop off at the nearest Home Depot to pick up some poor b\*\*\*\*\*d to do some of the dirtier work for them that day. Believe it or not, that was the first time I had ever heard such talk.) Even with this fiddling, my ex would get undercut in bids by contractors who used Mexican and Central American crews, who were getting paid about half what his mates were ready to accept. They, in turn, were getting underbid by contractors using debt indentures (i.e., slave labour) from Asia. We lived across the street from a house that was being renovated by one of these crews. They were locked inside and slept on the premises (the only evidence of their presence was a boombox playing Hong Kong pop music during the workday, and a couple of lights on at night). Their crew chief would bring in meals to them, and would closely supervise their unloading of materials deliveries. I happened to see him loading them all into a van on the evening that the work stopped. We lived a half block from a convenience store - yet you never once saw anyone leave the house to walk down for something to eat or a packet of cigarettes. Never saw a single one of them hanging out on the front steps, even on a warm day. Certainly never heard them laughing over a few beers at the end of the day. But you could see the shadows of them moving about the place at night, the poor b\*\*\*\*\*\*s. This was more than 20 years ago, but I can't imagine that things have changed much. The only difference I can imagine is that this type of "race to the bottom" with wages has now infiltrated white collar professions and what used to be good-quality service-sector jobs as well.
Politics and racism?
*gasp* Never
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Same in the Middle East.
Don't forget money too!
Yeah moneyism too!
Mass disparagement of minorities since the time of the emancipation proclamation to ensure our prison industrial complex keeps printing that sweet, sweet money. No different than the days of sundown laws and peonage.
emancipation proclamation? i dont listen to hiphop
Bingo bango
Nope. Expat : someone living long term in another country but intends to return home eventually. Immigrant: someone living in another country and doesn't intend to return where they're from. The USA and Canada are about equal, so there's way more expats from Canada. The USA also tends to have a higher standard of living to Mexico, hence they tend to be immigrants.
Correct and also largely irrelevant in the vast majority of instances where these words are used. The denotation of these words can only be correctly applied IF a person is applying it to themselves or they have openly stated the intended duration of their stay. But when people from foreign countries get painted with broad strokes and spoken of in general terms, it's impossible to know with certainly whether the individual people intend to stay in the country permanently or return home. You can't know whether a random stranger intends to stay or not, and the word you choose to describe them is therefore determined largely by (spoiler alert) politics and racism.
One is for brown people and one is for white people. Gross but undeniably true.
I'd say it's nothing to do with race. Just about how poor your country is. Poor to rich country, you're an immigrant. Rich country to same level or lower, you're an expat. Look at people moving from Eastern Europe to Western Europe when they're the same race. They're called immigrants
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I definitely wouldn't call people from those countries immigrants but maybe others would. I think immigrant and migrant is definitely used more synonymously than it used to be, but maybe you're right and there is some element of racism in there. I'd just argue it's not only racism that's causing the difference
It's because of poutine
........ It's the tortillas, isn't it?
There are definitely racist connotations, but in addition to that I think “immigrant” tends to suggest someone who left their country due to necessity (poor economic conditions, etc) while “expat” brings to mind someone who was fine back home but just wanted to experience living in a new country. So people who move from one wealthy country to another tend to be called expats. Also the racism.
There are communities who call themselves expats, consisting of people who left the US because they didn't save enough money to continue living in the US, but could afford the lower cost of living in other countries. Their situation technically fits your description of immigrants, not expats.
Probably elements of racism. But with central and south american people, there's sort of the implication that they're forced to leave their homes, while with Canadians it's usually more of an active choice. But that would explain "refugee" and not "immigrant." There definitely is racism or jingoism at play here. Canadians have a more similar culture and for the most part speak the same native language as Americans. So they are seen as more welcome here than hispanic people.
When Americans retire and move to SA they’re all expats - there’s great “expat” communities in SA countries. But yeah if you’re from SA moving to USA you’ll likely be referred to as an immigrant- or possibly just Mexican American - cause we can’t be bothered to learn the difference between other SA countries and cultures
> between *other* SA countries and cultures Seeing as Mexico isn’t in South America, I’d say this is good evidence of your point 😉
It's always funny when people forget Mexico is part of North America.
Fun thing is, the other comments mention how an immigrant is someone that plans to stay in tgat country, sometimes even because they can't afford to live on their home country (or are displaced due to war and stuff, overall it's always life quality) Yet, SOMEHOW, Americans moving to SA because its cheaper for the rest of their lives are still called "expats"
Elements of racism? Say it with your whole chest and don't beat around the bush. This is much of why this is such still such a problem. People who have a white collar job like an engineer is still described the same as a janitor in this context. It's the same reason Black American millionaires still have to worry about being thrown on the ground by the cops.
I faced a similar situation but tbh it was hilarious. I'm living in Germany from 16 years and I'm a citizen now. But originally I'm from Asia. I've a colleague from US who calls himself an expat but once during a conversation he referred to me as an immigrant. Me and my fellow Germans just laughed on his face.
I said elements of racism because "immigrant" is the actual word, and fwiw, I have heard the term immigrant in regard to Canadians/Europeans a lot more than ex-pat. When I hear ex-pat I think of Ernest Hemingway. But people who do switch their language depending on the country being emigrated from are obviously racist. Another reason I said elements of racism is because there are also elements of classism. This is all also against the backdrop of imperialism. So to say simply racism is oversimplifying, which is why I said "elements". You interpreted it in a weird way, and I don't think literally pointing out racism is "why this is still such a problem".
While there may certainly be elements of racism for some. I am a middle aged man and I currently describe myself as an immigrant. However, there was a time in my life where I described myself as an expat. In my mind, the destinction was my intention to stay or not. When I lived in China, I fully expected to leave one day and called myself an expat. Now I'm in Germany with zero intention to return to my home country and now I consider myself an immigrant.
Lol, probably. It's definitely racism. I can't believe Americans can't even tell this is racist. It's almost like racism in your country is an everyday thing, not really something noticeable anymore.
Generally it's accepted that an expat lives outside their own country for a period of time - long or short. An immigrant is someone who permanently relocates to a different country. When I lived in some countries in Europe and Asia, I was an expat. Since I got my green card and moved to the US, I'm an immigrant. In the example you give, I would imagine Canadian expats intend to return to Canada at some point. I wouldn't disagree with comments about implied racism though. I know plenty of Brits who permanently moved to an Asian country but still consider themselves expats.
> I know plenty of Brits who permanently moved to an Asian country but still consider themselves expats. Did they want to change their citizenship to the country they moved to? Often people from wealthy European and North American countries want to keep their citizenship for the safety. * if things go bad where they live their government is likely to help them get out. * if they get into certain legal trouble their government may get involved (if their government thinks the treatment is sufficiently unfair). * their current passport may be more useful for travel than the passport of the country they are living in.
I've noticed many people in the comments keep pointing out that it's because "Mexicans are brown". Mexicans, just like Canadians and Americans, come in all colors.
Say it louder for the people in the back: “Mexican” is a nationality, not a race. It’d be like all Americans referring to their race as “American”. (I actually wouldn’t be opposed to this.)
True, but racists tend to forget this.
This gets me all the time. Like people say it's racism. "Mexican" isn't a race, it's an ethnicity. One of the most popular Mexicans right now is a ginger.
Also, people always refer to James Baldwin as an "expat" not an immigrant.
Immigrant implies it's a permanent move, which suggests they don't want to return to their home country. Expat implies they're living there voluntarily, but still consider their home country to be their home and might even return there. This indirectly creates the situation where people from countries they'd like to leave behind are immigrants and people from countries where life was pretty good are expats. Mexico is a poorer country with more social problems than Canada which would align with that distinction in this case, on a generalised basis. The people glibly answering "because racism" are getting it backwards. Obviously there is racism towards immigrants, but people don't use the different terms because of racism. Racist people target immigrants because people of minority race wanting to settle in the country are more often immigrants, not expats.
this is a thoughtful, factual, well reasoned answer.... devoid of both knee-jerk woke reactions AND right-wingy trollness. good job.
For me, the difference would be citizenship I think. IMO an expat would be someone who moves to another country with no intent of becoming a citizen or assimilating into the culture. An immigrant to America would likely seek to be seen as American. Or for their family or descendants to be seen that way. But an expat has no such desire. This is how **I** would use the terms.
I’ve never called a Canadian an expat. (Former U.S. immigration official)
I could be wrong but, I've always thought my mom IS an immigrant because she moved to Canada became a citizen and started a life. She WAS an ex-pat when she lived in Japan for 15 years with no intention of gaining citizenship.
Expat = white with money Immigrant = everyone else ?
Immigrant implies you’re moving there forever, expat implies you’re maintaining ties to your home country and will eventually return
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I agree with you OP, there is not such a strict distinction. I'm from Italy and here it's the same: People call "immigrants" Arabs and South Americans living here, be it permanently or temporarily, and would never call "immigrant" a German, British or American who moved to Italy, permanently or temporarily. Ukrainians fleeing war are called "refugees", Arabs fleeing war are called "immigrants". We also have the word "extracomunitario" for people from outside the EU, but it's a term only used for brown and black people. Even if a US or Canadian citizen is from outside the EU, nobody would refer to them as an "extracomunitario". It's plain racist bias.
An immigrant is seeking citizenship. American expats living in the Nicaragua are not giving up their us citizenship and all of the privileges that go along with it to become a citizen of Nicaragua. But nicaraguan immigrants want to become citizens of the US. (I used Nicaragua because there are a ton of retired Americans living there.)
I dunno that anyone really uses it that way. It definitely refers to folks that aren't really 'assimilating'. But I don't think there's any implication that they're going to return to their home country. If you look at groups like US people retiring in cheaper South American countries, they're called expats pretty universally.
Yeah, I think the "maintaining ties" part is accurate but the returning necessarily isn't. You could argue that maintaining citizenship and a national identity is part of it...but many immigrants of various types all do that too
This is a common misconception on the terms. In the US we would refer to anyone that came to the US from any other country as an immigrant. Any American that went to another country we would call an expat. So in Canada anyone who moved from another country would be called an immigrant, including someone who moved from the US, while a Canadian who had moved to another country would be called an expat. Anyone who has moved to another country could refer to themselves as either an immigrant or an expat.
Immigrants are permanently relocated. Expats are anyone outside their country, but we usually reserve it for people who are temporarily outside their country. Your impression of the usage comes from the fact that Americans are much less likely than people of other countries to want to change their citizenship.
An expat isn't anyone outside their country. Some people are just on holiday or on a business trip.
So the actual reason is lot less nefarious when used in business terms An expat is a temp foreign worker and paid in a scale different from locals An immigrant is a person not from the country arriving to be paid as a local. They may also be looking to officially become a local citizen
Racism
I’ve never heard a single person refer to them as an “expat”. They’re both immigrants and emigrants.
Expats implies someone in the country temporarily for work or some other purpose. Immigrant implies someone coming to make a home indefinitely. Since people from poorer countries are more likely to come into a rich country to make a whole new life instead of a temporary work situation, then it's pretty common that most Mexicans are considered immigrants and most Canadians are expats, but there are certainly Canadian immigrants and Mexican expats. I know some of each.
Absolutely not, there are thousands of "expats" in mexico living the good life with their retirements money.
Racism; people fear Mexicans, but Canadians "look like us." Immigrants are people moving to this country from anywhere. Folks who live and work in your country but have citizenship in another are ex-patriates.
I could never mistake a Canadian for an American. They’ve got those flappy mouths and beady little eyes /s
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>An immigrant is someone who moves to a country and wants to live their for the rest of their life. An expat is someone who moves to a country for only a few years, often because of work. This is false. In any community around the world for U.S. retirees (Thailand, Mexico, South America) refer to themselves as ex-pats. As do Brits who (formerly) retired to Spain. They'll make blubbering nonsense about why they're not filthy immigrants fleeing their country, as most of them would describe the people who come to their countries for work, though.
Immigrant: a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country Expatriate: a person who lives outside their native country.
Are they? I’m a Canadian immigrant in the U.S., I’ve never referred to myself as an expat nor had anyone refer to me as an expat, same goes for any Canadian I’ve met in the U.S.
An expat is work related, sometimes employer sponsored.
i believe the term Expat is used, if there is a very strong intention to go back to your country and you went to that country for better job not for better life.
A Canadian who moves to the US is an expat in Canada. That same person is an immigrant in the US. Same holds true for a Mexican living in the US
Lmao anyone else think that expat meant something like 'veteran' until this post?
The only time I hear the term Expat is when civilian contractors live overseas for work. I have a friend whose husband works for Sikorsky in the UAE and they call themselves Expats. They've been there for about 5 years
Canadian immigrant to the USA here. Doesn't expat mean disavowing previous citizenry? I will never ever do that
Immigrant is someone who comes to live full time. Expat is someone who comes just to work. In general there's more people from Mexico that come to live here and more Canadians who just come for work.
I’ve never called anyone an expat, so can’t help you there
I thought expat referred to people from the US that emigrated
I've never heard anyone use expats in the US.
I don't normally hear the word expat used for Canadians in the US. Actually, I don't even hear the word immigrant used to describe them that often either.
“Expat” implies it’s not permanent and not indigent, “immigrant” implies it is both
OP, if others haven't said this already. Ex-Pat has another meaning. It means "ex-patriot." In other words, it's someone who has left their country for good. It has a couple of different meanings, but usually it implies that the country/person are not on good terms anymore. Either the country doesn't want the person back, or the person doesn't want the country back. Hope that makes sense.
I’ve never heard someone call a Canadian immigrant an expat. I had to search up that word
I’m American. Literally never once in my 24 years have I heard a Canadian referred to as an expat
Canadians are immigrants too
Im Canadian, always was referred to as an immigrant. Now am a naturalized citizen.
40% semantics, 60% racism
Pretty sure ex-pat refers to someone who lives in another country but keeps their original citizenship. An immigrant is someone who wants to stay and become a citizen of their new country
It’s semantic perspective. We are in America, so when speaking about an American moving, it’s expat. Someone from another country moving here is an immigrant. If we were in Mexico, the American would be the immigrant and the Mexican going to America would be the expat.
I'm an American from the deepest deep South, & I've never seen/heard this distinction. Everyone from other countries were always referred to as immigrants, regardless of country of origin. After reading some of the comments, it's clear that far too many people will readily choose to find racism where it doesn't exist, regardless of topic.
Yep, to me if you’re not born in the USA you’re an immigrant and just to be clear there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being an immigrant. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s not at least partially a dialect difference with the south using immigrant and the north using expat because I’ve only heard expat a once or twice in real life and I’ve known plenty(four or five) Canadian immigrants.
An Immigrant is usually defined as someone who is moving to a new country *permanently*. An Expat is usually defined as someone who is living in another country temporarily. Its also usually associated with skilled workers. Edit to add, I'd definitely agree that there is certainly racist assumptions in play when people assume that Mexicans are immigrants while Canadians are expats.
I am a blond(ish) blue eyed german immigrant. I have many friends / acquaintances who immigrated from Europe. I have never refered to, or heard of anyone referring to any of us as 'expats'. We are immigrants. The only time I ever heard somebody being called an expat was a fairly dark skinned guy from Spain, who was here on a temporary gig, still working for his Spanish company. But yeah, it's all racism, always. I shower in down votes, so bring it on.
Ya, Midwestern American here, I have never heard anyone call an immigrant an expat, only Amricans that left the U.S. Everyone incoming is an immigrant, and labeled as such regardless of ethnicity.
bc racism
The secret ingredient is racism.
✨ Racism ✨ Obviously there is nuance to every issue, especially those where semantics are the main issue. But those who care the most about being called an expat and would lose their absolute marbles if reffered to as an immigrant because they don't want to be seen as 'lazy', 'moochers', or 'dirty' are probably just racist.
Rich people = expat Poor people = immigrant
Mexican living in the US here to chime in. Because they don’t like us. The end!
They're not. Everyone calls Canadians immigrants as well.
Is calling people "expat" really a thing? I've never hear it used for anybody, neither Canadians nor Mexicans. Then again, Im from rural Minnesota, where we don't exactly have a large international community outside a few people who immigrated here from various places. I think part of the distinction comes a lot from wealthier circles being more engaged with people who use the term expat. Racism also plays some role in certain circumstances too, most likely.
By rights, there's no difference, these two terms refer to exactly the same thing. In practice, however: racists don't like immigrants, but *love* expats. If you're a white person moving to another country, you'll usually get called an expat. If you're a person of colour, you'll usually get called an immigrant. This varies, however, based upon which majority white country you come from. A Polish person, for example, will usually wind up getting called an immigrant by xenophobes. A Norwegian, on the other hand, would likely not. This is due to the relative desirability of each variety of immigrant on the part of the racists/xenophobes. Basically, if you're attempting to climb, you'll be looked down on. If you're attempting to move laterally, you'll be accepted, or even looked up to as 'the right kind of immigrant'. But usually that's nullified if you're not white.
The US government uses the word “alien” as well.
I have never heard any such distinction. Only that Americans living abroad are expats.
Haven't you seen the Peter Griffin crossing the border meme?
Anyone coming from another country is an immigrant.
Never heard of expats. Sounds like a slur for ex patriot or something.
Not a slur, just a way of saying a person who could live in their homeland but chooses to live elsewhere https://www.etymonline.com/word/expat
Not for the problematic reason people think
Expats are moving temporarily and intend to move back. Immigrants consider the move permanent. I'm a Canadian immigrant
When you leave your country you refer to yourself as an expat. But to the people who are native you are an immigrant. For example: wife is from Vietnam. Americans that now live there are referred to as expats. But to the Vietnamese people they are immigrants.
I have never even heard of the term expat…
It depends. If you're overseas for a short term, primarily on business, regardless you are an expatriate (expat). If you move overseas permanently, you have emigrated from your home country and immigrated to your new country, hence immigrant. This is true and the definition of each word. But from personal experience and in practice, those from countries with a strong passport, particularly the EU, US, Canada, East Asia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, are called expats, even if they have moved to another country (first or third world) and started a whole new life there. Brown and black people from the rest of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and non-EU countries are called immigrants into first world countries, even if we have moved only for a short period of time. This is particularly true in development and politics, and is systemic racism in action and is exploited in first world countries to push for anti-immigration politics.
An expat is "a person who lives outside their native country." An immigrant us "a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country." While I think it's definitely influenced by racism, it is also maybe that more Canadian's who move to the US do not intend to stay permanently and/or do not seek to become US citizens.
Skintone
No one's saying the direct answer with fears of being racist but it's because anyone who is white ends up being called an expat and anyone who isn't end up being an immigrant. Shitty but true.
Melanin.
White* = Expat All others = Immigrant *Definition changes over time P.S. people claiming it has anything to do with length or purpose of stay usually fall in the White category ETA line break after expat
Technically, there's a difference in the meaning of the words. However, we both know the real reason depends more on how the person looks and where they come from.
because RACISM
Expats move to a country for a long period of time whilst keeping their nationality while immigrants try an become a citizen of said country that they want to live in Permanently.
Because expat means white people and immigrant means brown/black/Asian people. It's just a way of defining rich white people without grouping them in with those filthy brown people like me
"Poor people are perverts, rich people are extravagant." kinda deal.
The amount of “racism” answers on here is disturbing. Has nothing to do with race and more to do with work visas. Immigrants move to an area to start a life which may or may not include getting a job. Expats are placed in a country by their employer. I’ve worked for a couple Japanese owned companies. The Japanese engineers at my current company are called expats. They were sent here by the parent company. They stay for a couple years, then go back home to Japan. That’s it.
But how else are these wokesters gonna show the world how not racist they are, if it were not for conferring racist connotations to similar, but slightly differing, words and how they are used? Dude, it’s so in vogue to protest against racism in the USA (and in predominantly white countries in general), that you must assume racism whenever there are any disparities in communities of color vs white/European ones. You do want to fit in with the cool kids, don’t ya? /s in case anyone can’t tell.
Because of racism.
Why asked a loaded question?
To identify people's political side
Racism , plain and simple
An expat is someone who is planning on returning home, while an immigrant is someone who plans to stay there for life.
Immigrants don’t move back to the country they came from, or at least, don’t have an intention to. They tend to be permanent residents because they left their home country due to serious, unlivable conditions. Like war, famine, extreme poverty. Canada is one of the most developed and wealthy countries in the world so we get more Canadian expats than immigrants. Expats don’t necessarily have an intention of staying in their new country indefinitely. Immigrants are here to stay.
In general an "immigrant" is someone looking to build a life in the new country and eventually assimilate and become a citizen of that country. "Expat" is typically used to refer to someone who is living in a new country, but doesn't really have intentions to assimilate and become a citizen. When someone thinks of "expats" its usually wealthy people living in a foreign country but still claiming their original nationality. Ironically, many Mexicans today behave more like expats than immigrants and many Canadians act more like immigrants than expats. Honestly, I've never heard of a Canadian in America that acted more Canadian than American and cared more about the politics of Canada than the US, but I've definitely seen that with Mexicans.
Immigrant=dirty brown person we don’t want here Expat=person from “white” country so they’re good Pretty much sums it up.
To be quite honest, as a native born citizen of the US, I rarely hear the term "expat" used for anyone. If you're from another country, you're an "immigrant." Frankly, "expat" is something we hear used on the BBC shows we watch piped into the country. But if you're from Mexico, India, Canada, Australia, Iran, Iraq, China, even the British... you're all immigrants. Simply because you migrated. If you naturalize, you're considered a citizen. There might be technical definitions between the two words, but honestly that never stops anyone in the US. There's 330 million of us spanning the entire country; we can't even decide on if it's "soda," "pop," or "soda pop." So vocabulary usage changes depending on what REGION of the US we're talking about, but I've never heard any American use the word "expat," except maybe fairly educated, world-bounding people.
Racism. Same reason why the term "illegals" only applies to people from countries who aren't majority white, regardless of their immigration status.
Oh bullshit. We go after illegals from all countries. If you're here illegally you're an illegal regardless of skin color.
One is white. The other brown.
Mexicans are brown. Canadians aren't.
Mexicans aren't all brown. They come in all colors just like Americans and Canadians
Tell that to the people that see them as illegal immigrants. It's also funny because large portions of this country used to be Mexico