I'm an American expat living overseas, AMA

[Anonymous]

What's the marijuana like overseas?

[Anonymous]

My experience was somewhat similar.
I agree that an expat is a person who does not expect to stay in the country for long and makes no effort to integrate. At the same time you are loosing out on an experience you could never have at home.

Expats are not all wealthy. In my day it did not matter why or how you came to be living in the country. Every person was welcomed into the expat community and we all had a shared experience. In the end it became a proxy type of a family.

I second the recommendation to move to a country before kids start high school. I changed a country and a language at 14 and for me the move back to the passport country was painful. I do not have lot of sympathy for parents who regard their school going children as luggage and never give it a thought. At the same time my youth was very unique, challenging and wonderful at the same time

I did not raise my kids in the same lifestyle. My parents are now retired in the home country, I never got used to the lifestyle and do not identify myself as belonging to that country. I am from there, know the language and culture, but life happened and now I live elsewhere and am adjusted and happy. This despite everything.
At some point you have to realize that the constant moving is not about you anymore

[Anonymous]

op, do your kids go to ASD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are both you and your husband monolingual?

DH is fluent in German and I am reasonably fluid in French.

We have never needed to speak anything but English in the countries we lived in.

This is so sad, if true.

Where have you travelled to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are both you and your husband monolingual?

DH is fluent in German and I am reasonably fluid in French.

We have never needed to speak anything but English in the countries we lived in.

This is so sad, if true.

Where have you travelled to?

I'm in a similar position to OP and grew up overseas. It's not sad, it's reality. It doesn't mean OP has cloistered herself. In countries where English is the language of commerce, and where the locals are a pretty reserved bunch, it can be very hard to speak/learn another language. If you just don't hear or have opportunities to use it, it is basically the same as taking a second language class back in the states.

[Anonymous]

Why do you refer to yourself as an expat? Is that just the white term for immigrant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you refer to yourself as an expat? Is that just the white term for immigrant?

In the UAE all non locals are called expats, whether they are white Americans/British/Australians, or brown Pakistanis or Indians or Filipinos. They will never, no matter how long they live in the UAE, get citizenship or permanent residency or access to any of the social benefits reserved for locals.

As been pointed out several times already, there's a pretty clear distinction between expat and immigrant. Immigrants are people who make a permanent move to a new country, like the waves of immigrants into the US. Some immigrants may eventually move back to their home country after a prolonged absence but usually by that point they've received citizenship or permanent residency in the host country.

Expats are temporary migrants who live in a country for a period before moving on and are not considered or treated as potential future citizens.

Good luck in trying to turn it into a racial subject when it is not. There are Japanese and Korean expats working abroad. There are Jordanians and Egyptian and Indian and Pakistani expats working abroad. There are Filipino expats working abroad. The expat world is a pretty diverse world.

[Anonymous]

I disagree with the distinction between expats and immigrants and think the term is outdated. Travel and communication has become easier, so you can live in one country and have a foot in the other. Which means your stay could be as long as 20 years without ever fully integrating, but staying true to your roots and raising your kids as part of the home country culture.
Immigrants is what new arrivals were called a century ago. They had no chance of ever going back and maintaining contact with their home country was limited to letter writing.

Immigrants are seen as a lower social class to expats, so I believe that is why some expats do not like the term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I disagree with the distinction between expats and immigrants and think the term is outdated. Travel and communication has become easier, so you can live in one country and have a foot in the other. Which means your stay could be as long as 20 years without ever fully integrating, but staying true to your roots and raising your kids as part of the home country culture.
Immigrants is what new arrivals were called a century ago. They had no chance of ever going back and maintaining contact with their home country was limited to letter writing.

Immigrants are seen as a lower social class to expats, so I believe that is why some expats do not like the term.

I don't think you've ever been an expat. If you'd been one then you'd know that the expat world calls itself expats, not immigrants. There are scores of expat forums that uses the word expat, not immigrants. There are scores of expat clubs that uses expat, not immigrants. The terminology used by local governments and publications in countries with large expat populations (The Gulf, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and so forth) is very much expat, not immigrants. And for good reasons. Expats are temporary. Immigrants often are not.

In the UAE the lowly paid workers are all called expats. Because they are not local residents, nor are they immigrants.

The distinction between making a temporary move abroad for a work assignment or corporate relocation with no intention of settling permanently in the new country, and a permanent move to a new country, even if you still keep close connection to your home country, is still a sharp division and speaks of two distinct groups of people. I don't know why you keep refusing to acknowledge the difference. Expat and immigrants are two proven and widely used terminologies that each have strong connotations that accurately reflects the status of the people. A family moving from Pakistan to Canada with intentions of settling permanently and obtaining the citizenship are immigrants. A family moving from Pakistan to work in the UAE for several years because the father's company sent him there to run the local office for a few years are expats. They are not the same.

You, along with some other well meaning but ultimately misguided people, are simply trying to turn the issue into one of white privilege or racism, when it is really not, especially in today's increasingly globalized world with a larger population of people from all sorts of countries and nationalities across the world working abroad for their employers for a few years or even decades but without taking residency or citizenship in the host countries. DC has plenty of expats working in the embassies and NGOs for a few years before returning home. Would you call them immigrants?

[Anonymous]

A family from Germany moving to Canada on a work visa as a transfer by home country corporation are expats. If the head of household changes jobs and gets a different visa they are still expats. After staying in the country for 5 years they are still expats. 20 years later they are still expats and not immigrants?