Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
General Topics => The Debating Chamber => Topic started by: KKOB on March 14, 2015, 13:39:24 PM
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I've mulled this over in the past and, in my yoof, I must admit that I assumed that "Expat" was a term that only referred to white people living and working in Africa and Asia :
In the lexicon of human migration there are still hierarchical words, created with the purpose of putting white people above everyone else. One of those remnants is the word “expat”.
What is an expat? And who is an expat? According to Wikipedia, “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 that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/13/white-people-expats-immigrants-migration
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Reminds me of the tale of a US citizen arriving at Heathrow. When she got to front of the queue she was told she should have been in the Foreign Nationals queue. "How dare you!" she replied, "I am not a foreigner. I am an American!".