tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post6922287457344130647..comments2023-09-23T11:16:00.352+02:00Comments on The Franco-American Flophouse has moved: Walls: Americans in MexicoVictoria FERAUGEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16319699673885400472noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-32081529074955293352014-10-19T16:18:24.086+02:002014-10-19T16:18:24.086+02:00Victoria,
It seemed to me when I lived in Paris t...Victoria,<br /><br />It seemed to me when I lived in Paris that France and the U.S. are both nations that have a mission to save the world -- one as the center of culture and the other as the fount of democracy. And both are economies strong enough to provide jobs that keep potential emigrants at home. I married a man from India; we did not move to India because with a foreign wife his job, and certainly career, prospects there were extremely poor. <br /><br />Also, both France and the U.S. expect assimilation, although in different ways. A Turkish man I know went to school in Paris, loved France, spoke fluent French, had a great job and looked forward to French citizenship and life in France. However, he was told that to rise in his career he would need to change his name to a French name, which also indicates he is Christian rather than Muslim. At that point he and his wife, also Turkish, decided to return to Ankara. His is not the only such experience I know of. American culture more readily accommodates a mixed sense of identity. <br /><br />As for "expat-wife" -- I agree the connotation is negative. Yet worse is "trailing spouse." Irisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-7064126558861933052014-10-19T08:16:15.600+02:002014-10-19T08:16:15.600+02:00@Arun, That is a very good point, Arun. Legal sta...@Arun, That is a very good point, Arun. Legal status is another way to look at it but is not, I think, definitive. I have known folks with Green cards (and folks with cartes de resident) who nonetheless consider their stays to be temporary. Settling was not their intent, nor their desire. How that might play out over time is unknown. <br /><br />Lot of blogs out there with "ex-pat" in their names. Books, too. I have an email from a friend in Japan telling me where I can connect with the "expat" community. In some places I hear the term "international community." As Bruce said there is emotional baggage attached to these things. Whatever the legal status, there are issues of identity in there as well. And I suspect some signalling on the part of developed country migrants. When dealing with the US gov or any authority figure in the US, "ex-pat" or "American abroad" is less likely to raise hackles.<br /><br />@Iris, And isn't it interesting how the US manages (or did anyway) assimilation without things like language laws and a national curriculum? And yet those forces were one of the reasons (there were others) my husband decided he wanted to leave the US. He was tired of America, tired of being an exotic beast, and he didn't want his children in American schools. They will never learn French properly , he said, and that was a deal breaker for him.<br /><br />I'm in the process of applying for my accompanying spouse visa for Japan which has led to some teasing about me being an "expat wife." And that term really bothers me.... :-)Victoria FERAUGEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16319699673885400472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-42263976112068056852014-10-18T19:15:25.852+02:002014-10-18T19:15:25.852+02:00Interesting post. The words "immigrant" ...Interesting post. The words "immigrant" and "expatriate" take on different meanings and different connotations in different countries. Even within Europe, differences are great between France and Germany for immigrants. As an American living in France thirty years ago, I discovered the German “second generation immigrant.” A friend born in Germany, speaking German and culturally German was legally Turkish because her parents were migrants from Turkey. Droit du sol et sang. My husband came from India to the U.S. as a graduate student. We married and he took American citizenship and considered himself American, never an immigrant. He said America is a club one joins, not a tribe one is born into. If we had lived in India, I could never have been considered Indian. <br /><br />Social pressure in America is to assimilate. Years ago I would ask a person with a slight accent, "Where are you from?" but usually the question was so resented that I found more indirect ways to satisfy my curiosity. When meeting a person who is obviously foreign born and has English as a second language I do ask and most accept the question as normal. The phrase "new American" helps to put her/him at ease. The hyphenated American identity is used by many immigrants for the first and second, sometimes third, generations. In the 1950s I did a fieldwork study of migrant workers from the Texas-Mexican border who were finding factory jobs and settling down in a Wisconsin town. Although most were born in Texas they originally identified as Mexican. In Wisconsin they gradually came to think of themselves as Mexican-Americans. <br /><br />I consider myself a former expat because I, my husband and our children lived abroad as a family “on the economy,” very much part of a part of that country’s life. Individuals one would designate as expatriates recognize the term as applicable to themselves but I've not known anyone other than myself identify as an expatriate. I’ve written about the meaning of “expatriate” http://irissansfrontieres.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/ Rich country nationals creating a community of their own in a less developed country, like in Sheila Croucher’s book, for the economic and status advantages it gives them has a long, well recorded, history under colonialism. As you write, people in Little Americas in Mexico and elsewhere are more vulnerable than they may realize. <br />Irisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-42980864513745001072014-10-18T14:22:41.893+02:002014-10-18T14:22:41.893+02:00Good post, Victoria. Two points on immigrant vs. e...Good post, Victoria. Two points on immigrant vs. expatriate. First, the "immigrant" label is invariably employed by nationals of the host country (US, France, etc) to designate resident foreigners, not by the "immigrants" themselves. One won't find too many Mexicans in the US, Moroccans in France, etc who refer to themselves this way (and in France, the "immigrant" label is also freely applied to the offspring of immigrants - born and raised in France - who naturally reject being designated as such). As for "expatriate", this is the self-designation of certain rich-country citizens living abroad, who regard their foreign residence as temporary. But few Americans who live in a foreign country more or less permanently refer to themselves as expats (none whom I know, at least). <br /><br />This leads to the second point, which is that difference between an "immigrant" and "expatriate" mainly has to do with one's legal status in the foreign country, of whether or not one is a permanent resident with the right to work, enjoys full access to social benefits, and with the possibility of naturalization. E.g. a couple of days ago I was with a former American student of mine, who's in her mid 20s, born and raised in Washington DC, and a 100% product of the American educational system. She appears to be 100% American but is, in fact, an American-Uruguayan dual national, whose parents - both educated professionals - came to the US in their 20s. Her father, who has a PhD from UC-Berkeley, has spent his entire career in international organizations in Washington (mainly the World Bank). But while my former student is an American citizen (via jus soli) her parents are not and, given their visa status, cannot be (though they could probably change it if they wanted to). Her mother has thus not been able to pursue her career (as an architect), as the US labor market has been closed to her except for short term contracts. So despite the fact that they've been living in the US for 30-35 years - most of their adult lives - they remain Uruguayan expatriates. They cannot be called immigrants. <br /><br />So when it comes to immigrant vs. expat, it all comes down to the Green Card, Carte de résident, or whatever it's called in other states whose nationality law is not based exclusively on jus sanguinis.Arun Kapilhttp://arunwithaview.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-57570382427329006612014-10-18T12:07:03.431+02:002014-10-18T12:07:03.431+02:00I enjoyed reading this. My grandparents on both s...I enjoyed reading this. My grandparents on both sides were immigrants to the USA. I always thought of myself as an immigrant to Canada. It was not until FATCA came to my attention that I thought of myself as an ex-pat too, when I found The Isaac Brock society blog. I met many other ex-pats there. I knew few Americans who came to Canada until then. I was already a Canadian citizen by then. northernstarnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-47022741877170499102014-10-18T09:12:03.925+02:002014-10-18T09:12:03.925+02:00@Bruce, Delicate dance, isn't it? :-)
We use...@Bruce, Delicate dance, isn't it? :-)<br /><br />We use these words without thinking but they aren't neutral. I used to use the word "guest" which I realized at one point was simply ludicrous. The problem with the word "immigrant" in France is that the French are reacting badly to the immigration they have and who wants to be in (or identify with) a group that the natives don't want and feel resentful about? So when we use "guest" or "expat" are we trying to protect ourselves? If that's true then we are recognizing in a roundabout way that we are weak. An assertion of superiority masking our incredible vulnerability. That's another way of looking at it...Victoria FERAUGEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16319699673885400472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-17909275864443669602014-10-18T07:03:28.126+02:002014-10-18T07:03:28.126+02:00I never saw my myself as an immigrant but we do no...I never saw my myself as an immigrant but we do not live in the 1800s when immigrants came across by sea from Europe to NA. That was one-way gene flow. Now it is much more balanced it is a two-way flow. In the genetics terminology, it is a "network". See this article. All definitions do not mean anything when you have the evolutionary perspective. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/evo-eco-lab/2011/07/29/prescribing-gene-flow/kermitziihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12563438755645035854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-12449097425795793722014-10-17T11:10:02.459+02:002014-10-17T11:10:02.459+02:00Very interesting observation about the unspoken em...Very interesting observation about the unspoken emotional weight of "immigrant" vs. "expat". After the first few years here in France, I found myself using the word "immigrant" occasionally, if mostly in the joke "<i>nous, les immigrants, on perd tous sauf l'accent</i>" (and yes, I'm conscious of using the passive voice in that sentence ;) ).<br /><br />As a long-time US emigrant resident ;) (and French citizen), I started using the word "immigrant" more and more frequently, and now I almost never use the word "ex-pat" unless I'm talking with someone from the US or Canada. But I wasn't really conscious of why I made that change, it just seemed, somehow, "more appropriate". Appropriate to whom? Maybe I was becoming "more French"? As I understand it from conversations here on the subject of French expats in other countries, the French often view their ex-pats as somehow "less successful", or "<i>they couldn't 'make it' here, so they went elsewhere</i>". Possibly a left-over from when France was a colonial power?<br /><br />In any case, I think talking about the emotional baggage of the words "immigrant" and "ex-pat" is very useful, with expat somehow being "more prestigious", and not having the frankly racist (and usually unacknowledged) US overtones of "<i>those dirty/brown/uneducated/etc. people from 'over there' </i>".Bruce B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06622988686282067766noreply@blogger.com