ancient shawol, recent nctizen

the dichotomy between the "immigrant" (someone from the global south who moves to the north) and the "expat" (someone from the global north who moves to the south) makes me feel fucking crazy. a white person who moves to asia is an expat but an asian who moves to the west is an immigrant. & how those terms are politicized and assigned class statuses, like the word "immigrant" tends to imply a blue collar worker (even if that isn't the case) while "expat" implies a white collar worker. the associations with "expat neighbourhoods" in asian countries is very very different from those of "immigrant neighbourhoods" in western nations. also how "immigrants" who dont assimilate are seen as "failing" and bad, lower class, a burden on society, etc. whereas "expats" not assimilating into local culture is expected and viewed as a sign of their higher status. the double standards are so insane

i don't know how many times i can say to europeans in the notes "these words have political connotations associated with race, class, and national origin outside of the most literal linguistic definitions and i am specifically talking about how these are used in the (southeast) asian context but this also applies in varying ways around the world because racism and classism are global phenomenons" before they stop replying to this post with 'uhm actually as a german who moved to chile i consider myself an immigrant this must be an english-ism or americanism, it's linguistically incorrect' because i'm going to start getting mean for real soon

there are literally Thousands of southeast asians as well as central+south americans and africans in the notes being like "this is literally exactly what it's like" but sure, this is an english language us-centric problem, thank you white germanaustralianbrit for enlightening us all

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