Chris Blattman

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White people are ex-pats and black people are immigrants?

According to Wikidpedia, “An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (“out of”) and patria (“country, fatherland”).”

Defined that way, you should expect any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat regardless of his skin color, country, etc.

That is not the case in reality: expat is a term reserved exclusively for western White people going to work abroad.

Africans are immigrants.
Arabs are immigrants.
Asians are immigrants.
However Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for inferior races.

That is Mawuna Koutonin writing in Silicon Africa. h/t Tom Murphy.

If you think this is a fringe view, even the WSJ has made the point.

Here’s my only rebuttal: if you asked me, “Is an employee of the Indian embassy to the US, or a Ghanaian on a 2-year posting to the UN in New York, an ex-pat or an immigrant?” I would probably say ex-pat.

Why? That person has no intention of staying more than a short period. I would say the same of a Chinese McKinsey consultant in DC for a couple of years. And the Sierra Leonean UNICEF manager in Uganda, or the Nigerian police trainer in Liberia, would probably call themselves ex-pats as well.

I wouldn’t say the same of a Jamaican fruit picker. So is ‘ex-pat’ a term of privilege rather than race? I went back to the Wikipedia article, and indeed if you read a sentence or two further that’s exactly the point it makes. So classism not racism?

Too many white permanent immigrants call themselves ex-pats, though, and so Koutonin (selective quoting notwithstanding) has a good point.

85 Responses

  1. A literary viewpoint: http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/these-immigrants/

    “Expatriates are like us. Immigrants are like them. We like expatriates; we don’t like immigrants. Expatriates pay taxes; immigrants take away our jobs. Expatriates contribute to the economy; immigrants depend on our welfare state. Expatriates work in high-rise buildings and sit behind computer screens; immigrants clear their trash cans and fill the trucks full of our garbage. Expatriates speak our language; immigrants struggle to learn our language.”

  2. I saw the original post/article trending and felt it captured a true phenomenon but the focus on race was a bit misplaced.  Also, I take issue with the terminology,  I would argue that the better comparison is between expat and migrants(rather than immigrants), both refer to temporary circular movements of people, while immigration relates to intended permanent relocation to a different country, often with some degree of assimilation(even if only acquiring citizenship or permanent residence).  At least that is the terminology I’m familiar with. 
    On the Migrant -Expat divide there is no doubt as the original post points out that the treatment of individuals varies considerably based on this distinction and they (can) have racial dimensions. However I would agree with Chris, the distinction is class rather than race. Unfortunately in many (most) countries assumptions about class are projected onto race so very quickly this “class” judgment can be presented as a racial(racist) one. However, how this happens isn’t consistent across countries though there are re occurring themes. In parts of South East Asia, South Asian populations can in many instances be considered expats, as a number of South Asian friends of mine who live in SEA have noted. Whereas the assumption is that South Asians in Southern Africa where I now live are not expats. Also, consider the mutterings from officials in Beijing about western workers in China post financial crises as an example of an instance where westerners in foreign countries in some (probably still rare) cases are not treated as honorific guests/expats.
      A particular nation’s or community’s perspective on the expat -migrant divide is coloured by their specific history of foreign migration patterns and how race is mapped onto class in minds of residents. It is, as with most things country/community specific. 
    Another point is that even in a particular country this is never absolute, as Chris notes, an East Asian consultant in DC will be treated as an Expat. Also  a south Asian who graduated from a top US university working for the IMF in southern Africa will not be treated in the same way as a south Asian shop keeper in the same country. Suits seam to have as much of an impact in these cases as race. The point seams to be people make assumptions about the individual based on their race but most can adjust them when presented with new information. It is therefore not just community specific but case specific. As a side note, it is true that westerners often unfairly win in this particular lottery by being given the benefit of the doubt where non westerners often aren’t. 
    One final point in this increasingly rambling post, there are instances where expats or migrants may wish to be treated as immigrants, that is allowed to assimilate and move from perpetual guest and temporary visitor to a permanent resident or citizen(obviously how immigrants are perceived and treated varies considerably).
     I spent ~20  years in a south east asian nation considered as an expat, with no possibility of immigrating and receiving the recognition or protection that permanent residence or better still citizenship would have given. Migrants may want to be considered as expats but also, both groups of temporary workers may want to be immigrants. 
    This then leads to a number of questions for each country which is considered.  (1) How are temporary workers perceived and treated, (2) how does race and class relate to how temporary workers are treated, (3) who is allowed to shift from a temporary visiter to a citizen and (4) how are people who move permanently vs temporaraly treated considering race/class etc. 
     The answers will be different across countries but there will be re occurring trends which will, no doubt, provide a more interesting, useful and informative answers than white=expat=good vs not-white = immigrant/migrant=bad. 

  3. Im sorry but the quoted bit just represets more parochialism and self pity from the post racial global elite. I know a huge amount of white. western emigrants who arent considered ex pats, but immigrants. Nonsense.

  4. We were just discussing this issue in my China-Africa class last Monday. Why are the Chinese who work temporarily in Africa called “migrants” when white people working temporarily are called “ex-pats”?

  5. And, more importantly: Southern Europeans who moved to Germany sixty years ago were much poorer than today, so they were self-perceived as immigrants, not ex-pats. So the views have evolved.

  6. Here in Europe, classism counts more than racism. Immigrants from Southern Europe working (temporarily or not) in Germany or Scandinavia are considered ex-pats by themselves, but are immigrants for the recipient countries. This view extends to the mass media in each country, as well.

  7. I think the following distinction approximates how the terms are used in practice: an immigrant goes from a poor country to a rich country, an expat does the inverse.

    So, white Spaniards in the UK are immigrants, but white Brits in Spain are expats.

    Duration is irrelevant, uneducated Portuguese workers in Switzerland, who often stay for a few years are not expats; they are immigrants.

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