DW-only for obvs reasons

[rhivolution]

Thinky thoughts--if I were to make a community on Dreamwidth for expatriate people in the UK, would anyone join it?

Thing is, there are a bunch of issues here:
- the obviously vastly different experiences for people of different races
- the class/race divide between being expatriate and being immigrant (I saw this referenced recently by someone, had an a-ha moment, but cannot remember where...citation help?)
- the differences in experience due to the places that one is coming from

And since my position is one of a shitload of privilege, being a white lower-middle-class person shifted between two Western English-speaking countries, one of which being the bloody USA...I gotta chew on this one for a while.

And also the issue of Anglophilia, which sometimes can drive me up.the.wall. (sorry Anglophiles.)


...OTly, I am pee-my-pants excited about my Festivids reveal later today. SO EXCITED. I have got more comments on my vid than on any fannish thing I've ever done and I am just plotzing.

Comments

[rhivolution]

Yeah, that is the thing, I would like thinky things and not to get fucked up stuff about race and stuff in there. (Not to say I do not ever fuck up, but you know what I mean.)

I was going to start unpacking my thinking about my personal definition of expat vs. immigrant, but I do not want to dump it on you or anything.

[azuire]

well I vote for a moderated small comm where people can gripe: I seem to get the VENT ABOUT WEIRD CRAP GOING ON IN BRITAIN GAIZ vibe.

and yeah, expat vs. immigrant is a very, very tricky thing to unpack, though arguably necessary.

[rhivolution]

In my complicated OCD-addled brain, it's class-based, though obviously race comes into play quite substantially too. Expats, to me, are people who have the resources and enfranchisement to actively choose to live/study/work outside of their country. There is no other reason but personal choice for them to live in Foreign Country. Also, in my head, it has something to do with whether one is resettled permanently (immigrant) or planning to go back at some point (expat), regardless of class/race/funds. In that case, I'm more immigrant than expat, though I also am predominantly here for personal choice reasons, which makes me more rhi!definition expat.

VENTING COMM sounds like it could be in the works.

[littlebutfierce]

Also, in my head, it has something to do with whether one is resettled permanently (immigrant) or planning to go back at some point (expat)

Huh. Expat to me connotes, say, Hemingway & whatever. Did he intend to go back to the US? I'm blissfully ignorant of most of the details of his life, but in my head expats are there for good.

Also, lots of immigrants are transnational: they may not intend to stay in the US (f'rex) for good, but end up doing so b/c of money, or they move back & forth a lot. I dunno, most of my uncles on the Filipino side of the family moved back & forth between there & the US (& also Guam, Austria, & other places). They may well end up moving back (as my grandparents did before they died) too.

[wrdnrd]

I would also add that there's often an element of "legal relationship" in the immigrant/expat split. Someone who identifies as an "immigrant" often means, in my experience, that they intend to establish citizenship in the new country -- if not for themself, then certainly for their children. Whereas on the other hand, i think expats often have no intentions of either surrendering their U.S. citizenship OR of establishing citizenship in a new country, but they also certainly have no intention of returning to the U.S. to live: Andy's aunt, for example, who is having all their possessions shipped over to the U.K. now that her husband has finally retired there.

Not that these are fixed definitions by any means! (Despite how much governments might want to make them so -- i'm thinking here of U.S. H-visas (aka, work visas) which state that the holder is maintaining their residency in their home country, a definition that seems explicitly designed just to fuck people over.) Lots of the people i know who live internationally (for lack of a better phrasing) don't fit neatly into either category. I know a few people living in the U.S. who have each been living here for decades, but have never wanted anything other than permanent resident cards (one woman is married to a U.S.ian and has children with dual citizenship, but i don't think she perceives of herself as an immigrant -- she's just sort of living here). And i know lots of people with multiple citizenships, which breaks things up into yet some 4th dimension of discussion.

[littlebutfierce]

Yeah, my mom only got US citizenship when I was in high school, & that was only b/c some law changed that would fuck up her social security benefits. She was quite happy to regain her Finnish citizenship when they changed their laws to allow her to do so (& allow people like me to gain it). An old boss of mine (British, actually) has lived in the US for almost 20 years but has no desire to become a citizen. And of course there are the undocumented, as well, for whom there's v. little choice in the matter. (& DREAM Act kids, for whom there might be a choice, someday...)

I can't imagine ever wanting to acquire British citizenship, no matter how long I live here, but then it's easy not to b/c I have EU citizenship & thus a certain amount of privileges anyway (can't go on the dole, though).

[rhivolution]

See, I'm looking for dual citizenship in the future, but then my situation's quite different than yours with regards to living here. (And, as you say, no EU citizenship.) SO COMPLICATED.

[azuire]

What if you get moved around for company posting whatsits and have no choice over which Foreign Country you move to?

[rhivolution]

There's sort of a different place in my head for the diplomatic/military moving life that's neither expat nor immigrant, if that makes sense. It's closer to expat, though. My brain is weird, I hope I'm not offending you.

[azuire]

my family doesn't work in diplomacy/military-related things so we are all in that uneasy limbo between expat & immigrant. my father likes to call us 'everybody's minority', even though class wise we'd qualify as expats in transition to becoming diaspora. it be complicated!

[rhivolution]

Indeed. There aren't good words for it, really. We must make our own language?

[azuire]

uhm. expigrants? immipats? ahahaha.

[mercredigirl]

I am ZOMG at the idea that 'expat' means a different thing outside of SEAsia (i.e. MNC-posted worker from overseas).

[mercredigirl]

iono by SG standards you're expat classwise, though I know how a lot of people would mark you as immigrant because of race. ('Expat' tends to be saved for white people? But if you've been here a long while you're a resident...? *thinks of Kyle, who isn't really white anyway*)