Expat vs Inmigrant

Words, can be beautiful, can be painful, too often we just use them without really thinking twice about their real meaning, about what they sometimes subtly hide. Expatriate (expat) is like a cool world now. I think I've used it occasionally, even to refer to myself. I think the first time I gained contact with this term was through some friends that had moved to Switzerland and were in an 'expats forum' to find people to meet (seems like many Swiss nationals tend to be a bit 'particular' about foreigners and it's quite unlikely that you will manage to socialize with them). The term has gained a lot of traction, so well, if you move to another country to work, you are an expat.

But, this situation has existed since the first time humans came up with the concept of 'countries', so in the past we used a different word, immigrant. But, hey, we still use this word today, and seems as if for just the same, people that move to a new country. So one could think that they are synonyms, but for sure they are not, we don't use them as such, they are not used interchangeably.

You could say that maybe expat is more like a temporal move, it's false, it's used by people that have been living abroad for many years, and furthermore in many occasions when you move you do not know for how long, life is to complex for that kind of certainties. Also, it has nothing to do with whether you are moving inside the Schengen Area, cause USA and Canadian citizens are expats, but Polish people, Romanians or Bulgarians are usually immigrants. It's not about qualifications either, some European high school drop outs move abroad to be expats, some African, south American, Asian... university graduates are immigrants. So it seems like both words establish a difference, there are 2 types of people that move abroad. It seems like expats are cool, they are there to help the country, they are valuable, they should be welcomed, they should not be randomly questioned for their ID by the police. Immigrants are not so welcome, they 'steal' jobs, they do not integrate, they take advantage of the social system, they scare people. Expats come by plane, immigrants sometimes too, sometimes by bus, sometimes by patera, sometimes die in our coasts or are received with hits and hate from the police. I think all this stinks somehow like racism and xenophobia. Expats are like us, immigrants are different. Us versus Others, the same rotten misconception that has always led us to disaster. I even think expats can be against immigration, both in their own country and in the new one, cause in the end they don't consider themselves immigrants.

So yes, expat is a perverse term, I don't like it. I will never call me an expat again. I am an EU citizen, I'm white (well, Southern Europe 'Olive' skin) and have a University degree, but from now on I am an immigrant, like the Cameroonian or Moroccan people that work with me. We are equally integrated and equally contribute to this country (indeed, they pay French taxes while I still pay Spanish ones).

Actually, I think the (*)migrant term itself is confusing, more properly, it confuses. There's a nomadic nature in human beings. There's a constant (or there should be), change, evolution. You move from one kind of music to another, from one kind of films to another, from one clothing style to another, from one place to another, life should be a journey of discovery in all of the infinite aspects that make up the human nature. Furthermore, when do you stop being an immigrant? If you have lived more time in the new country than in the original one, you are still an immigrant? does it have to do with getting the nationality? Again, I think the term is terribly confusing, we are just nomads wandering in a sea of confusion.