The Sommers Hypothesis

Otsuba Park, Osaka, Japan, June 2017

As I was doing my fieldwork in Japan I came across something that is referred to as the Sommers Hypothesis.  Scott Sommers is a Canadian who has lived in Taiwan since 1996 and before that he lived and worked in Japan and South Korea.  His website says that he is working on his PhD in Educational Psychology at Ming Chuan University in Taipei where he also teaches English.

I read the old posts on his blog from time to time and I enjoy them. He has eclectic interests, writes well, and he's a thoughtful man with a lot of experience living in Asia.


In his blog archives I found several posts by Sommers where he looks at the EFL industry in Asia through the lens of my passion, international migration.

Foreign English Teachers as Economic Migrants

The Economic Migration of English Teachers in Asia

The Myth of the Adventurous English Teacher

The Issue of Social Class Among Foreign English Teachers

Sommers begins his inquiry with a puzzle.  Why is it that so many Anglophones from developed countries came to Asia in the 1980s and continue to come in large numbers today?  Some of this flow is Global North-North migration (Canada to Japan, for example) and some of it is Global North-South (UK to Thailand).    You have only to look at the Japanese immigration statistics for this population to see that this phenomenon is real.

Japan Statistics (see 2-14 Foreigners by Nationality and Age (Five-Year Groups) (1950--2005)(Excel:88KB)) show that in 1965 there were 12,685 US,  1,940 UK, and 1,460 Canadians in Japan.  In 1980 there were 18,590 US citizens.   In my MA dissertation Anglophone Migrants in Japan Mobility, Integration and the Secondary Labor Market  I took note of this in the larger context of increasing immigration to Japan:

• "But with the rise of the Japanese economy, foreign labor was welcomed in the 1970s and 1980s (Douglass and Roberts 2003, pp.6–7). By 2008 the foreign population had grown from less than 1 million to over 2 million (Chung 2010, p.3). Most of the migration was from other Asian countries like China but the number of Americans, British and other English speakers grew too. In 1985 there were 25,170 US citizens in Japan (Statistics Bureau n.d.). In 2010 those numbers had risen to 50,667 Americans and 16,044 British (Statistics Bureau 2016a)."

So Sommers was absolutely on to something interesting.  And he was right to focus on the sector he knows the most about, the EFL industry, because I would argue that this was the "pull" that brought these Anglophones to Asia.  All of them?  No.  A majority of them?  I would say Yes.  My study seems to confirm it and there is research to support it (See D. Hawley Nagatomo's work, for example, or a close at the visa categories they used when entering Japan).

Sommers argues that any explanation of this migration must take into account "[t]he large and seemingly endless number of Anglo-Americans who are leaving their homes; its origin in the 1980s and "[t]he fact that they move almost entirely to those places in Asia where English teaching jobs are available without special training, the income is reasonably high and the standard of living is comparable with their mother country."

He is using a push/pull model where the "pull" is:  a good economy, jobs, decent wages, and a high standard of living with a minimum of professional credentials required. He is correct that EFL jobs can be had in Asian countries with only a BA in any subject.   On the ECC website two of the requirements are: 1. "Bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognized institution" and 2. that the applicant be a "Native speaker of English (grade 1 through completion of high school conducted with English as the main language of instruction)."  Compare that to teaching in a public school, say, in a province of Canada which requires a degree and certification.  Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in the public schools in the US has a similar certification process (depends on the state). 

That's the pull, but what was the "push"?  Why did they leave the US, UK, Canada, Australia?  It's all the more puzzling when one considers that these were mostly young, college-educated individuals. If you look at the country statistics they don't appear to be the least privileged members of their societies.  In 2015 only 33% of Americans had a college degree. So what's up?

Some people are satisfied with a very short answer:  it's all about the adventure  This is a "lifestyle" choice  (and let's stop the conversation right there.)  But Sommers isn't satisfied with that explanation and neither am I.  For one thing, "adventure" is a very broad term and means wildly different things to different people.  For another it's a self-reported state of mind, not (as Sommers points out) something tangible that you can measure.  If someone says to me "I'm moving to France to have an adventure" then I need to follow up with "What does that mean to you?" And when she returns (if she does) what are the indicators that say "Adventure achieved." (Or not, as the case may be.)  

At some point I suggest that you have to dig deeper and go beyond what people say and look at who they are, what they did at home, how they were able to move abroad, and what they do in the host country.  I personally believe that "adventure" is indeed one of the motivations, but is it the only one? Highly unlikely.  Migration is almost always multi-causal and there is no reason to think that Anglophones from developed countries are any different.  

And here is where Sommers raises hackles because he suggests that these anglophones are not just migrants, they are economic migrants.  In general, Americans, Canadians, Brits do not like that term and don't want it applied to them.  To them, it implies low status and puts them on the same level as the unloved and unwanted immigrants in their own countries.  I fully understand their position even though I disagree with it.   

In what sense, then, are they economic migrants according to Sommers?  It has to do with their relative position in the home country job market, the capital they left home with, and the positions open to them in the host country.  He speculates that :  "Anglo-american groups are represented in East Asia as English teachers in proportion to their disadvantage in their domestic labour markets."  

And what is this disadvantage he says they have? Their degrees.

• "Since the late 1980’s, I estimate that close to a million Anglo-americans have taught English in East Asia; Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Over a number of posts, I have developed the idea this is a direct result of the decline in workplace value of the BA (Bachelor of Arts). Graduates who are not able or willing to gain further merit through graduate studies or professional education have been marginalized. Without this merit, liberal arts graduates have been forced into underemployment in the ‘dead-end’ jobs of their mother country or to move to the margins of the industrial world where their language and cultural skills have been commoditized and are thus sellable."

In other words, when young people are unable to get jobs at home that are commensurate with their university-level education (and paid well enough to cover the cost of that education), they look to opportunities abroad that leverage their degrees and native-speaker English skills.  EFL companies in Asia actively recruit young, college-educated people from those "core" Anglophone countries.  

Very interesting hypothesis.  He points to studies in the 1990s that suggest that there has been a decline in the value of the BA in those countries.  I did a quick but not extensive search for more recent data and, frankly, I found a lot of studies but no firm conclusions other than general agreement that having a tertiary education is better than not having one.  There is a good 2016 article in The Atlantic about a study that would seem to support Sommers' point.  My own study suggests that, yes, it's mostly (not always) young people with liberal arts degrees that come to Japan to work in EFL.  It was definitely the top employer by far. 

Still that's just one study and it's not proof of "push." Most college graduates in the US and other countries stay home, even those with liberal arts degrees.  What is the difference between those who stay and those who leave?  And I don't think that this can simply be a difference between the "adventuresome" and those who do not want to take the risk.

Another way to look at it is through the lens of socioeconomic status (and a degree is often used a proxy for that but I'm starting to think that this is deceptive).   In addition to degrees we might want to take a closer look at other indicators like how they were able to finance going abroad.  I came across a very few cases in my study where the adventure was almost entirely financed by the family back in the home country or personal savings. They didn't need to work and could devote 100% of their time to making connections and studying the language and culture until they were ready to find a job, open a business, or go to a Japanese university.  I can't help compare their experience to that of those who came to work "on the economy" in local jobs where they were hired for their English skills.  Almost all had a least a BA, so the real difference could be one of resources.  In a couple of cases connections were important - they already had a family member living in Japan and they lived with them until they found their feet.

Why am I so interested in this?  Am I simply being a "spoiler of fun" and all around buzzkiller?  I would defend my interest (if I must) and Sommer's hypothesis for two reasons:  1. It's my passion and I really want to dig into migration puzzles like this one.  Sommers asks good questions and right now my answer to them is "I'm not sure but I'll take that hypothesis and run with it."  Even if it takes me into uncomfortable territory.  And that alone is good enough for me.  

But then there is the second reason which concerns all of us.  One of our (Americans abroad) arguments against the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and for Residence-based Taxation (RBT) is that we are better characterized as working people with average incomes and assets, and not professional class or above, champagne-swilling, sushi-eating elite "expats."  We even write books that homelanders read about how how our experiences have greatly enriched us personally and professionally. And then we turn around and ask them to support us in our efforts to only be taxed in our host countries. It's not just the mixed message here, it's the fact that we have precious little proof that we are what we say we are. We know what we personally experience, we listen to our friends, but we know precious little about other Americans around the world or even in the next city.  And I think this matters a lot to how credible we are in this fight.

Sommers gives us one place we could start and he is to be commended for that.  But we need more data, more studies to support or refute what he has to say.  I would say that we need more studies about migrants from developed countries period.  A lot of government policies about immigration in the countries I have cited in this post are based on perceptions.  It's no different with emigration. We can kick back and listen to some politician or government bureaucrat tell us who we are (and grumble because we don't like it) or we can know ourselves and tell them with data to back it up.

And if it happens that the data show that some of us are, indeed, economic migrants?  So what?

It takes a lot of courage to pack up and leave and it takes a lot of hard word to build a life in another country with few resources.  We can be proud of ourselves for going where the work was, and there is nothing about that that says "failure" to me.

That's my unvarnished take on it, mes amis.  But I'm very interested in hearing what you think.  So fire away.

An American Abroad Looks at the US Presidential Race

Do home country national elections matter to emigrants/expatriates who live outside their countries of citizenship?

Some countries allow their diasporas to vote in national and even local elections.  The French abroad, for example, can vote in French elections from their host countries, and Article 24 of the 1958 Constitution establishes the right of the French living outside of France to have direct representatives in the French Senate.

Having the franchise, however, does not guarantee that any national community abroad will exercise it.  Mexicans abroad have had the right to vote in Mexico since 2005 and there are millions of Mexican citizens all over the world.  But as of 2012 there were only 61,000 absentee ballots requested from over 100 countries.

So it's not enough to simply have the franchise in the home country, migrants/expatriates must also have the means to exercise that right and, I argue, a good reason to do so.  Motivation really matters here.  If there are no compelling issues that stir interest in a community abroad then they won't bother to register or send in their ballots.

With that in mind, let's look at the US presidential elections.  In the latter part of the 20th century Americans abroad gained the right to vote with the Overseas Citizens Voting Rights Act of 1975 and  The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) passed in 1986.  Since that time the two major political parties in the US have worked to encourage voter participation in the US communities living outside the United States.

But as Dr. Claire Smith showed in her 2010 article for the Overseas Vote Foundation, only 374,955 civilians requested ballots from abroad for the 2008 elections and only 59.2% of those ballots were actually submitted.  Problems with the voting process?  Absolutely.  And yet the number of overseas citizens who tried to vote was not that high to begin with given that there are, according to the US State Department, around 7 million US citizens living abroad.

Why might that change in 2016?  I would argue that Americans abroad do have a keen interest in this election - a personal dog in this fight that might encourage Americans abroad to vote in higher number than in the past.

The issues are the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act and citizenship-based taxation - a deadly combination that is wreaking havoc in American communities all over the world.  FATCA  was passed in 2010 and requires banks in the host countries to report the accounts of US citizens and US Persons to the US government which has led banks in the host countries to close the personal accounts (checking, savings and retirement) of many Americans abroad, and declare all Americans persona non grata at their banks.

Citizenship-based taxation, US law that says that the incomes of US citizens/US Persons earned outside the United States are taxable by the United States government, has been around for many years but was not enforced until very recently (about 2008).

Americans abroad are not only furiously angry and deeply bitter about what they see as the hostile acts of their home country government, but some feel they have no choice but to renounce their US citizenship. That is the reason that renunciations of US citizenship have soared in the past few years.

For many, if not most, Americans abroad these are THE issues that trump (no pun intended) everything else.  I call it the American Diaspora Tax War because I have never seen so much resentment and, strangely enough, solidarity on the part of Americans abroad.  This situation has united angry Americans from many different countries around the world against the anti-emigrant policies of the US government.

This is the prism through which I see the upcoming US presidential elections and I don't think I'm alone here.  The question, however, is whether or not  the candidates will speak to those issues.  To motivate Americans abroad to vote I think it is not enough for these issues to be mentioned as part of an overall party platform;  they need to be addressed by the candidates directly.

So far I am not seeing that.  Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have a lot to say about domestic issues - gun control, the national debt, immigration - but after parsing the Issues sections of their websites, I don't see anything that speaks even indirectly to FATCA and citizenship-based taxation, their impact on Americans abroad,  and what they plan to do about them.

The Democrats do at least nod in our direction and acknowledge our existence. Clinton has a special link for Americans abroad who want to contribute to her campaign.  Sanders talks about tax reform (the super wealthy, corporations, and the use of tax havens) but seems oblivious to the existence of middle-class Americans living abroad who might need a little tax justice, too.  (And I found that to be a real pity because I kind of like Sanders.)

Am I missing something here?  You tell me.  I invite the advocates of these candidates to come forward and direct me to whatever information is available that clarifies their position on what is happening to Americans abroad right now.

Do I and other Americans abroad care about the issues and the upcoming elections?  I can't speak for anyone but myself but my answer is:  Of course I do.  I have family in the US and things like gun control, healthcare, US immigration and the national debt impact the people I love.

That said, the only issues that have a direct impact on me are:   foreign policy (because when that goes badly, Americans abroad are on the front lines)  and US government policies toward its diaspora - the 7 million or so Americans living outside the United States.

If I believe that my issues are being ignored, or that candidates might actually make things worse for me and my compatriots abroad, not only will I not vote for those candidates, I probably won't vote at all.

Because the right to vote means nothing if you feel that the candidates aren't listening and that you don't have a voice deemed worthy of being heard.

Flophouse American Diaspora Reading List

“Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.”

Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991

Time for an update of the Flophouse American Diaspora Reading List - the best books and articles I've read recently about American people and communities abroad.  New books are in green.  As always, please feel free to add to the list.  

This list has three sections:  Upcoming titles - Books that have not been published yet but that I plan on reading; General books/articles - the larger view.  Some talk about specific issues (like citizenship), others are studies, portraits or serious research about Americans abroad;  Expat autobiographies - Accounts of Americans in different countries.  These are not books that tell a potential American migrant how to live abroad.   These are personal accounts that talk about what happens to American identity when it gets transplanted somewhere else for a year or two, or for a lifetime.  

Upcoming Titles:

The Citizenship of Americans Living Abroad: Democracy and Those Who Leave by Katya C. Long.   A Flophouse reader says the Routledge website indicates that this one will be published on November 30th 2015.

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General books:

Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite (1995) by Robert D. Kaplan.  Kaplan is one of my favorites.  I don't always agree with him but he writes beautifully and he does his research.  This books has excellent portraits of the American communities in places like Lebanon in the 19th and early 20th century.  They were not just missionaries, they were educators, explorers and advocates.  Kaplan draws a line between that American expatriate "localitis"  which was passed down to their intellectual heirs in the late 20th century, and the diplomatic debacle behind the first Iraq war. 

Revoking Citizenship: Expatriation in America from the Colonial Era to the War on Terror (2015) by Ben Herzog.  Not as good a book as Sovereign Citizen by Patrick Weil, but still a fine read. The US has a fine tradition of making and unmaking citizens.  Who was not worthy to remain an American citizen?  In one era it was race, in another it was having the wrong ideology, and in our time it is support for terrorist organizations.  Herzog quotes extensively from Peter Spiro's work and argues that it is the duals who are the most vulnerable today because, he posits, we are living in a period where dual citizenship is merely tolerated, not accepted.

American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates in the Civil Rights Era (2008) by Kevin K. Gaines.  In 1957 the British Gold Coast colony in sub-Saharan Africa became the independent state of Ghana.  A number of Americans of African descent left the US at the time to live, work, or simply lend their support to the new state.  People like Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Richard Wright.  The Civil Rights Movement in the US had an international dimension and many activists saw their fight for rights in the United States as part of the larger context of African national independence movements.  An amazing story with a not so happy ending - a military coup took down the regime in 1966.

The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic (2013) by Patrick Weil.    Really superb book. Excellent research into the un-making of American citizens in the 20th century. 

The Other Side of the Fence:  American Migrants in Mexico (2010) by Sheila Croucher.  A book that came out of a study that Ms. Croucher conducted on US citizens residing in Mexico.  This is not a definitive book about Americans in Mexico in the first decade of the 21st century. It's a sketch that leaves out a lot and once we have that firmly in our minds, we can look more closely at some of her arguments and the questions she asks about the meaning of this group in the larger picture of regional migration on the North American continent. Flophouse review here.

Round-Trip to America:  The Immigrants Return to Europe (1996) by Mark Wyman.  Fascinating look at the immigrants who came to America and then turned around and went back home.  How many?  Hard to know but in the brief period where the US government tried to track it (1908-1923) the inflow to America was nearly 10 million and the outflow was 3.5 million of which 88% were Europeans. Wyman notes that these remigrants represented an important connection to the United States and were viewed as "americani" and "Yanks" when they resettled in their countries of origin.  Worth reading to remind us all that migration is not an aller simple.

The Other Americans in Paris: Businessmen, Countesses, Wayward Youth, 1880-1941 (2014) by Nancy L. Green. I was really looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint (gave it four stars on Goodreads).  The American community/colony in Paris has always been far more diverse than one might think:  businessmen (and women), lawyers, doctors, dentists as well as students and artists and writers. Green does an excellent job of broadening our perspective about this community which has existed since before the American Revolution.  I highly recommend this book and all of Nancy Green's work.

Civic Myths: A Law-And-Literature Approach to Citizenship (2007) by Brook Thomas.  There is citizenship as the law of the land which defines who is legally "in" (or "out") but there is also the social context around it which influences how we feel about that citizenship.  Thomas shows how the "good citizen" or the "immigrant citizen" were portrayed in popular American literature.  The most interesting for me was his discussion about the very famous essay The Man Without a Country which may still be influencing how Americans feel about expatriation (renouncing or losing US citizenship).

Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Polity (1985) by Peter H. Schuck and Rogers Smith.  My review is here.  This is a book that argues against the rather broad application of US jus soli citizenship laws.  I think it reads very differently for an American living outside the US who is aware that these laws have created something that is being referred to now as an "Accidental American." 

What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France (2013) by Mary Louise Roberts.  Well-researched and has so much information in it that I was in awe as I was reading it.  However, I'm not so sure about the conclusions she drew from that research.  I think I need to read it again before I can give it a fair review.   If you have read it, let me know in the comments section what you thought. 

Migrants or Expatriates?  Americans in Europe by Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels. This one came in 2014 and is THE book to read if you are interested in knowing something concrete about just who those absent Americans (7 million or so of them) are:  socioeconomic status, political affiliations, host country, integration, identity and so much more.  Short Flophouse review here and an interview she gave about the book here.  

The Citizenship Revolution: Politics and the Creation of the American Union, 1774-1804 by Douglas Bradburn.  This came out in 2009 and it examines the development of US citizenship in the post-Revolutionary War period.  Fighting over citizenship in this newly independent state was influenced by what was going on in Europe (the French Revolution), the arrival of yet more immigrants and the naturalization question, and expatriation (how to give up US citizenship).  For the last look no further then the fascinating case of one Gideon Henfield, an American who, when accused of privateering, invoked his "right to expatriate" and informed the court that he was no longer an American, but a Frenchman.  He was acquitted in 1793 and allowed to leave and go about his business. 

Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization by Peter Spiro (2008).  This one is already on the Flophouse Diaspora and International Migration Reading List but it definitely should go here as well.  What has happened, in his view, to US citizenship in a globalized world?  I am planning on re-reading it with my American abroad eye taking into account what has happened in the world to US citizenship since 2010.

Expatriation, Expatriates, and Expats: The American Transformation of a Concept by Nancy L. Green.  This article (available on-line) was published in 2009 in the The American Historical Review. Great essay about American expatriation in the legal and cultural senses.  How did the right to expatriate (the right to leave) go from a mechanism for "nation-building" to one of excluding Americans from the nation?

Americans Abroad: A Comparative Study of Emigrants from the United States by A. Dashefsky et al. Published in 1992 this is a study of Americans migrants in Australia and Israel (Canada is briefly mentioned as well).  It asks provocative questions about motives for leaving, adaptation in these countries, and why the migrants stayed, returned to the US, or decided to move on to a third country.  In the final chapter are some interesting conclusions and proposals for policies around this emigration one of which is: "Deter efforts to force migrants to change citizenship or otherwise make a permanent, formal commitment to one society or another."

Leaving America:  The New Expatriate Generation by John Wennersten.

Published in 2007, a very interesting book that re-examines the "American Dream" in the light of American emigration.  Talks about Americans in Canada, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.  It's one of the few I've found that includes African-American emigration and women migrants.  Some good statistics (or at least estimates) at the end of the book.

The Unknown Ambassadors: A Saga of Citizenship by Phyllis Michaux.

Published in 1996, this is the story of how Americans abroad organized around issues of particular importance to Americans living outside the US:  citizenship for the children of Americans who were born abroad, voting rights, and many other issues like Medicare from the 1970's to the 1990's.  This is the diaspora going to the homeland government for recognition as a distinct group with particular interests.  It's a battle that is still ongoing but this book is important because it's the only one I know of that gives the the history and the context behind today's efforts.

"Gilded Prostitution": Status, Money, And Transatlantic Marriages, 1870-1914 by Maureen E. Montgomery.   The title is a bit off-putting but if you are an American woman married to a foreign national this is a good one.  The marriages examined here are between elites (U.S. and U.K.) over a century ago and yet some of the negative (and positive) attitudes about women who marry foreigners and leave America are all too familiar.  Under it all, of course, were questions of citizenship (should women lose their citizenship because they marry "out") and taxation where money followed these women abroad.

Americans Abroad, How Can We Count Them? This book which came out in 2010  is the transcript of a hearing held in 2001 by the U.S. Congress House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, Sub-committee on the Census,  on the feasibility of including Americans civilians abroad in the census.  This is the diaspora meeting the homeland government directly and the interplay between homeland interests and the interests of Americans abroad is fascinating.  In particular the testimony of the representative from the U.S. State Department shines a light on the relationship between the US Embassies/Consulates and the American communities in the host countries.  

Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad by Gabriel Sheffer. This is a general book about diaspora politics but I include it here for two reasons: 1.  It will put the efforts for recognition in the three previous books on this list in a much larger context.  There are patterns, general strategies that all diasporas use or try to use as they attempt to manage the relationship with the homeland over different issues and 2.  He examines the question of whether or not the American communities abroad (some of which have a history that goes back to the American Revolution in the 18th century) constitute a true diaspora. 

A Gathering of Fugitives:  American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965 (2002) by Diana Anhalt. a fascinating portrait of American political expatriates, a "small group of controversial Americans who found refuge in Mexico during the late 40's and throughout the '50's..." Flophouse review here.

Innocents Abroad:  Americans Teachers in the American Century by Jonathan Zimmerman.  

This book focuses on one of the largest and most visible group of Americans who live and work abroad: teachers. Zimmerman talks about the distinct differences between those who went abroad in the first half of the 20th century and those who left in the latter half. Though the social, historical and political frameworks changed over time, he notes that there has always been a diversity of opinion and a debate about just what these Americans were doing (or supposed to be doing) abroad. There are things in here that will make Americans wince - not just how some Americans viewed the countries where they worked (especially those that were a part of the American empire like Puerto Rico or the Philippines) in the first part of the 20th century, but also how this continued with a different twist in the second half of the century.

Beyond Borders: Portraits Of American Women From Around The World by My-Linh Kunst

A beautiful book about American women abroad - the photography is stunning.  These are ordinary women who have done (and are still doing) extraordinary things outside the US: Jean Darling (Ireland), Yuzana Khin (Thailand), Gillian McGuire (Italy), Kim Powell, (France), Lucy Laederich (France), Marcia Brittain (Uruguay), and Jane Cabanyes (Spain) to name just a few. The book came out of a FAWCO (Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas) project and is the work of two members: My-Linh Kunst (photography) and Charlotte Fox Zabusky.  A longer Flophouse review of the book can be found here.

The Transplanted Woman by Gabrielle Varro

Gabrielle Varro is a CNRS researcher in anthropology and sociology who has studied bi-lingualism, immigration and the sociology of mixed-marriages. This book came out of a study that she conducted with AAWE of French-American marriages and families over generations.  Some of it is about the dynamics of cross-cultural marriages but it also looks at American identity as it is transmitted through the American wives of French men.  A Flophouse discussion of Varro's work can be found here.

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Autobiographies:

At Home in Japan: A Foreign Woman's Journey of Discovery (2010) by Rebecca Otowa.  I was not impressed by the first half of the book and almost put it down.  But I perservered and the second part was all that I could hope for.  Flophouse review here.

Foreigner in My Own Backyard (2014) by Travis Casey.  I found this when when I was looking for a copy of Bill Bryson's book.  The author is an American who has been living in the UK for 20 years (he's a dual US/UK citizen) and who has had to come back to the US for a short time to care for family.   These are his first impressions of life back in the homeland.  It's funny (and sad sometimes).  Some of his stories show just how ambivalent Americans in the US are about Americans who leave.  If you are an American abroad and have ever toyed with the idea of going "home" for an extended visit, I think you will enjoy this one.

The American (2007) by Franz-Olivier Giesbert.  A rather dark book but with a unique perspective.  The author is an Accidental American in France who wrote about his relationship with his American father.  Flophouse review here.

Second Skin (2012) by Diana Anhalt.  Some stunning poetry from the author of A Gathering of Fugitives. She writes about her host country (Mexico), languages (English/Spanish) and much more.  One of my favorite lines from her work:

"Today I speak Spanish to survive,

but I write in English for its punch,

for the way it slices through excess, draws blood,

attracts sharks. (They know this voice and come to me.)"

Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language by Katherine Russell Rich

All about the trauma of losing identity and forming a new one in a new language and country.  Very honest account of how she felt during the process.  A longer Flophouse review of the book is here.

Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball:  The best of Joe Bageant edited by Ken Smith

The musings of a "redneck socialist" which are mostly about homeland politics but there are some excellent essays in this book about his time in Belize. His political views are pretty clear:  "Capitalism is dead," he said, "but we still dance with the corpse." Really engaging writer and his expat perspective is one you don't come across everyday.  Just have a look at his bio.  

Tales of Mogadiscio by Iris Kapil

This is a series of essays written by an American woman in a cross-cultural marriage (her husband is Indian and they got married in the 1950's).  She was a serial expat but this book is about the two years the family spent "on the economy" in the capital city of Somalia in the 1960's.  Beautiful descriptions of what that city was like before the country descended into chaos and became the epitome of a "failed state."  Kapil has a fine blog called Iris sans frontières.

Will the Fun Ever End? Possible New US Person Reporting Requirement

Some mornings I read some delightful missive in my inbox, and then I put down my coffee, walk over to the nearest wall, and knock my head against it.  Made for a very satisfying thunk back in Versailles where the walls were 1929 solid.  Not nearly as effective in my modern Osaka apartment since the room dividers are covered in cheesy thick white wallpaper which cushions the blow.

But I make do.

So what had me banging my head against a wall this morning?  A possible new US Person reporting requirement.

According to Allison Christians, a McGill University tax law professor and all around Fine Person (she loans me books and buys me coffee) based in Montreal, Canada, reports that the US Bureau of Economic Analysis  has decided to make its bureaucratic life easier, and by extension other people's lives much harder.

Their form (and isn't there always a damn dead tree form?) Benchmark Survey of U.S. Direct Investment Abroad, the BE-10a-d, was used by the BEA to gather information about US investments outside the Land of the Free.  It was voluntary;  now it's required.  The due date for new filers of this form is June 30, 2015 - the very same day millions of US Persons around the world must have completed their Fincen 114 reporting (aka FBARs).

Christians says that the now mandatory BE-10 filing concerns "any US Person that directly or indirectly held 10% or more of the voting securities ("US Reporter") of any non-U.S. business enterprise (a “Foreign Affiliate”). There are no de minimis exceptions: no matter how small your nonUS corporation might be (or have been-you must file for the year even if the corporation ceases to exist), you must report or face the penalty."

The penalty for non-filing is "$2,500 to $25,000 for nonfiling, plus $10,000, or a year in jail, or both, if the nonfiling was wilful."

That's the bare bones info.  I imagine that most of you have just one burning question and that is:  Does this filing requirement apply to US Person me, my investments, and my small non-US family business or consulting company?   Once my head stopped spinning from all that wall banging, I watched this BEA video and, for the life of me, I couldn't figure it out. Christians herself is looking into it, and if it isn't obvious to a professor of tax law, then no wonder little ol' me is confused.




Just out of curiosity, were any of you Costco (or local equivalent) shoppers out there aware of this?   Did anyone send you a note, give you a heads-up, cc you on the memo?    Or are you reading it here for the first time?

Because, setting aside for the moment the question Is this reporting necessary? (for some reason that escapes us peons) this highlights once again that there is a serious communication gap here between the homeland and Americans abroad.  Did the people at BEA think for two seconds that there might be 8 million US citizens and Green Card holders abroad (not to mentions those living in the US) potentially affected by this requirement?  And if those 8 million+ people were taken into consideration, might that not change how the requirement was designed, implemented and communicated to the population concerned?

It's not just the BEA but the entire US government that needs to get a grip on globalization and the fact that it has a Domestic Abroad, a population that does not live in the US and may never ever live there.  Yes, taking them into account makes things messy and harder to implement but if laws, policies and regulations are applied to these people regardless of where they live, and they run the risk of draconian fines or jail time for failure to comply, then, at minimum, government has an obligation to clarify and inform.

And don't give me that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" crapola.  According to one source, US Federal law has over 23,000 pages in 50 volumes.    The US tax code alone is over 7,500 pages written in the weirdest, obscurest language comprehensible only to a small, select group of scribes (some of whom charge 500 Euros an hour for the "translation").   With numbers like that ignorance isn't a choice, it's a chronic condition.

What to do?  Instead of roiling in fear and frustration one option is for us to start banging on their walls instead.  BEA has a contact email: be10/11@bea.gov and a phone number (202) 606-5566.  Ask for clarification and be sure to get them to put it in writing that you do or do not have to file this pesky form.  Let them know that you are not the only US Person abroad asking these questions and suggest that they provide additional information on their website pertinent to US Persons who do not live in the US. And then send everything to your US Congresspersons so that they are in the loop as well.

Maybe it will work and maybe it won't.  It's worth a try, if for no other reason than the possibility that sending those emails might just assuage some frustration and save a wall or two.

Update:  Professor Christian has updated her post and says that, as far as she can tell from the instructions, non-resident US citizens are not required to submit this form.  Between you and me, I would still ask them directly and extract an answer in writing.  Cover your ass?  Absolutely.

Restoring Lost Citizenship

Very good post up today on the Isaac Brock Society website.  Eric, who writes from Asia, calls attention to the case of a South Korean pop star who renounced S. Korean citizenship in 2002.  Yoo Seung-jun (these days a resident of China) now wishes to reverse that decision - he wants to renounce his American citizenship and have his South Korean citizenship restored to him.   Here is the link to Eric's post:

An exile wants to give up U.S. citizenship and come home to South Korea.

Is it possible to regain a citizenship that a person has lost or renounced?  The answer is that it depends on the circumstances and the country.

Italy, for example, has a pretty straightforward procedure for re-acquisition of citizenship.   Italian citizenship is restored in two ways:

"1.  Automatically one year from the date in which they established residence on Italian soil, unless they renounce it within that term of time.
2. By specific declaration:

• serving in the Italian armed forces; 

• by being or having been in the employ of the Italian government, even abroad;

• if a foreign resident, once legal residence in Italy is established, within one year of the declaration for reacquisition submitted to the Italian consular authorities; 

• once legal residence in Italy has been established for at least 2 years, and it can be proven that the applicant has left the foreign government employ or military service undertaken despite express prohibition by Italian law."

 The conditions (as of 2008) for restoring Vietnamese citizenship are even more interesting:

"1. A person who has lost his/her Vietnamese nationality as prescribed in Article 26 of this Law and applies for restoration of Vietnamese nationality may restore his/her Vietnamese nationality, if he/she falls into any of the following cases:

• Having applied for permission to return to Vietnam;

• His/her spouse, a natural parent or a natural offspring is a Vietnamese citizen;

• Having made meritorious contributions to Vietnam’s national construction and defense;

• Being helpful to the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam;

• Conducting investment activities in Vietnam;

• Having renounced Vietnamese nationality for acquisition of a foreign nationality but failing to obtain permission to acquire the foreign nationality.

2. Persons applying for restoration of Vietnamese nationality may not restore Vietnamese nationality, if such restoration is detrimental to Vietnam’s national interests."

And what about U.S. citizenship?  The one where potential renunciants are warned and warned again that their loss of citizenship is "irrevocable"?  Well, not quite.  Read the fine print in the U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 9:

"A loss of citizenship is permanent and irrevocable, unless the U.S. Government subsequently overturns the loss for involuntariness or lack of intent." (Italics are mine)

According to Ben Herzog in Revoking Citizenship, between 1982 and 1985 the US Board of Appellate Review (the entity responsible for validating or reversing loss of citizenship cases at the time) reversed the loss of US citizenship in 35% of the cases reviewed - even those that involved a individual  who had formally renounced US citizenship at a US consulate.

Between 1973 and 1990 about 400 members of the Original African Israelite Nation of Jerusalem official renounced US citizenship.  After some members left the group, they asked that their US citizenship be restored.  "In 1990, the board dealt with eight cases.  It decided to restore citizenship in five cases, and rejected the other three.  Later that year, the board revisited those three cases and concluded that the renunciation had been psychologically forced and hence reversed its prior decisions."

So, regaining US citizenship even after a formal renunciation was possible;  the State Department had a procedure and a board that reviewed such cases.  A reversal was never guaranteed but there was a chance.

It appears that the Board of Appellate Review ceased to exist around 1991 - about the time the State Department changed its policies (following the results of US court cases that set a new standard for "voluntary" and emphasized "intent") about expatriating acts and dual citizenship.

Today in 2015 a renunciant can ask the State Department for an administrative review (see U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7) of that loss of US nationality if any one of the following apply:

"(1) The law under which the holding of loss of nationality was made is later held unconstitutional; for example, a law concerning voting in a foreign election;
(2) A major change in the interpretation of the law on expatriation is made as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision; for example, the decision in Afroyim v. Rusk or Vance v. Terrazas;
(3) A major change is made in the interpretation of the law by the Department or is made by another agency and adopted by the Department. Most of these changes arose under previous statutes and prior to the decision in Afroyim v. Rusk; for example, cases involving naturalization of a minor; and
(4) Substantial new evidence of involuntariness or intent, not previously considered but contemporaneous to the time when the potentially expatriating act was performed, is presented by the individual."

And if the former US citizen is denied, then he or she can then file a court case asking that State's decision be over-ruled.

Given that standard for "voluntary" and "intent" what are we to make of the cases before us today? US citizens are renouncing in record numbers, but many openly say that they feel forced into doing so.  Not, mind you, because of taxes, but because of a tax system with onerous requirements with which it is difficult and expensive to comply.

I am dead certain that there will be requests for restoration of US citizenship in the future from some of today's renunciants.  How will the State Department judge those cases?  No idea.  Will it go to the courts?  Absolutely.

A suivre.  

The Making and Unmaking of a Citizen in Japan

A few weeks ago a blogging confrère left a link to his site Becoming Legally Japanese.

I have had a look since and I recommend the site to you if you have an interest in citizenship law.  The site is in English and has good information on how to become a Japanese citizen, and testimonials about why people have taken this step - the latter, of course, being the more interesting question.  You can also read this Flophouse post by an American emigrant and long-term resident here in Japan who is also On the Path to Citizenship in Japan.

Citizenship in a democratic nation-state is an odd beast.  It retains some characteristics of an older status - that of subject - in that it is a personal status between an individual and a state (or a monarch).  But unlike subjecthood, it is (in theory) a status that a person chooses and can be renounced unilaterally.  A citizen (in theory) does not need the permission of his state to sever ties with one country and attach himself to another.

The reality is more complex than that.  Often, there are conditions to be satisfied before a person can change allegiance.  Some sending states require that another citizenship be obtained prior to renouncing.  This is meant to prevent people from becoming stateless persons;  the ideal being that every individual must be attached to some state, somewhere in the world.

On the other side, the receiving country has more power.  There is no absolute right to naturalized citizenship in any nation-state I know of.  Governments and their citizenry can and do place conditions that must be met before they allow an individual to become a full citizen.  In short, nation-states can be very selective about whom they accept for full membership.  In those conditions we find a blueprint of sorts for what that nation-state thinks is the "ideal citizen" and what they believe their citizenship means.

One of the conditions of Japanese citizenship is that the new citizen renounce all other citizenships.  The Land of the Rising Sun is well known for its rejection of dual or multiple citizenships.   To be Japanese is to have allegiance to one state, Japan, and no other.  Since the trend in citizenship law in the world is toward acceptance of multiple citizenship (even Germany has blinked), there is speculation that Japan, too, will change its ways.

Perhaps.  And I say this because I am discovering that the current system is far more flexible than people think.  There is the law and then there are the "facts on the ground."  There are Japanese citizens in France who have become French citizens.  The Japanese embassy in Paris is aware of this.

According to my source, they don't seek them out, but they will investigate if it comes to their attention - a Japanese citizen, for example, who has lived a very long time in France and cannot produce a French residency card when he visits the consulate for some reason or another.  Since France and Japan do not exchange citizenship databases there is no easy way for the Japanese government to know that a Japanese national has become a citizen of the French Republic, or of any other country for that matter.

Where single citizenship can be enforced is when a person applies to become a naturalized Japanese citizen.  The authorities can ask for documentation and proof of renunciation of all other citizenships, but even that isn't a sure thing.   The Japanese authorities do make allowances for subjects of countries that do not allow for unilateral renunciation.  Also, in some cases they have looked the other way unless the dual citizen is "outed" in some way so that it simply cannot be ignored.

So Japanese citizenship law is clear on the matter of dual citizenship, but the application of the principle is, well, a grey zone.

And that makes this post American had to forfeit naturalized citizenship due to hiding his lack of relinquishment up on Becoming Legally Japanese very interesting.  Nation-states make citizens and they can unmake them, too.  (For an excellent read about this I recommend Patrick Weil's  outstanding  The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic.)

What is fascinating about denaturalization (taking away a person's citizenship) is that nothing shows more clearly the difference between birthright and naturalized citizens.  In democratic nation-states it is generally very difficult to take away the citizenship of someone who was born with that citizenship.  Usually it requires proof of some sort of extreme wrongdoing incompatible with citizenship and even then it's not a simple process. At least, not in our time.

Naturalized citizens, on the other hand, can be unmade more easily and the most common method is to prove that there was some sort of fraud involved.  Even Hirsi Ali who was an elected member of the Dutch Parliament was not immune to charges that she obtained her Dutch citizenship fraudulently.

And that was the charge against this American emigrant to Japan who applied for Japanese citizenship, received it and then had it revoked.  To make matters worse, the authorities did not reinstate his previous status, that of Permanent Resident;  he was downgraded to Long-Term Resident. (See this site for a summary of the difference between the two.)

I will stop here and let you read the story for yourself.  I would appreciate comments or corrections from those who know more than I do about Japanese citizenship law.  It is an interesting case on so many levels, and I have the feeling that there is more to the story.  In particular I was curious about his rationale for not taking the steps to relinquish his US citizenship.  Note that both FATCA and the US Exit tax are mentioned in the article.

Americans Abroad and the Founding Mothers

A very nice post up on Ellen Lebelle's blog Thinking Out Loud.  It's called Lost Potential and the perspective is one familiar to many long-term American citizens abroad, but perhaps not as well known as it should be to young US citizens living outside the US right now.

If the United States of America has Founding Fathers, Americans abroad have Founding Mothers:  Phyllis Michaux and friends.

In 1961 they founded an organization called the Association of American Wives of Europeans (AAWE) and then in 1973 formed the Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO) which launched two fights with the homeland:  the right to vote from overseas and the right to transmit US citizenship to children born abroad.

The Right to Vote:  Not nearly enough American citizens today vote;  and this is just as true of Americans at home as it is of those living outside the US.  But prior to 1976, Americans abroad couldn't vote at all. In the early 70's, AARO, FAWCO (Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas founded in 1931) and the Bipartisan Committee on Absentee Voting started a grassroots campaign which ended in victory when President Gerald Ford (on the advice of Barry Goldwater) signed the Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Rights Act on January 2, 1976.

This was the Teabag Campaign and every time I read the story on the AARO website, I take heart.   Make no mistake about it, the homeland was not exactly falling over itself in its eagerness to give us the vote.  It took unity, political savvy and persistence.  And they (we) won.

US Citizenship for Children Born Abroad:  Another battle and one that is still controversial (see this award-winning article from The Foreign Service Journal called What Makes Someone an American Citizen?) was the fight to transmit US citizenship to our children born outside the United States.  If you are an American living abroad today and have gone to the US consulate to register your child's birth as a US citizen, know that just a generation or two before that would have been very difficult, if not impossible.

It was due to Ms. Michaux' and these organization's tireless efforts (and all of them putting up with an enormous amount of crap from dubious bureaucrats and politicians in Washington who did not take them terribly seriously at first - not even Phyllis who was a WW II veteran) that the citizenship laws of the US were changed to be more favorable to transmission of US citizenship through jus sanguinas (blood).

"Strenuous AARO advocacy helped to abolish in 1978 the law requiring that a child born abroad to a U.S. citizen married to a non-American reside in the U.S. for a specified period of time in order to keep the American citizenship the child was born with. In 1986, largely through our efforts, the period of residence in the U.S. required to transmit citizenship to children born abroad was reduced from ten years to five."

Today we face yet another challenge - homeland efforts to strenuously enforce its unique tax system, citizenship-based taxation, and its onerous reporting requirements (FBAR and FATCA).  Those women I've talked to who fought so hard to obtain citizenship for their foreign-born children are very worried about the impact this will have on them and their children.  As Ellen says:  

"The ones most likely to renounce are the American children born abroad and the accidental Americans, the ones born in the US to foreign parents and who never really lived in the US. The US only sees their potential as taxpayers, none other, so the country will lose them as potential ambassadors. In addition, the country will lose those of us who followed our hearts and chose to live and work almost our entire adult lives elsewhere."

This is the hand we've been dealt, mes amis, and the situation is dire with renunciations of US citizenship reaching all-time highs..  But every time someone tells me that I and others are wasting our time taking on the all-powerful US government, I have to wonder if they know their history - the history of Americans abroad and the fight for legitimacy (the right to have rights as American citizens wherever we live.)  It was not something we just have today that we can take for granted;   it was something the Founding Mothers had to fight long and hard for.  CBT and FATCA/FBAR are just another battle (like voting and citizenship) in the long long war for recognition of the American Diaspora which goes back to the middle of the last century.

So I would humbly suggest that the naysayers take a good long look at that history.  The facts are clear - those Americans abroad who came before us fought and won.  

And if they could do it,  damn it, than so can we.

Telling Our Stories in Our Own Words

Mawuna Koutonin's article in The Guardian was the perfect catalyst for me to re-examine my own feelings about those words and my own life trajectory.  When I was a college student I had no intention of leaving Seattle.  I assumed I would travel because that's something my family does.  But I never anticipated packing up and moving to another country.  Not in my wildest childhood dreams did I think that the words migrant or expatriate would ever apply to me.  How did it happen?  It was just one damn thing after another that led to one move and then another, and now here I am in Osaka, Japan.  

Koutonin's words touched a nerve in me and thousands of other people.  The words we use to describe ourselves are a signal to the world about how we interpret our experience and what kind of person we think we are.  When someone uses a word we don't like to describe us, we get really bent out of shape.  We have this horror of being misunderstood or misinterpreted - of having someone pin a label on us and make assumptions about our motives and who we are.  

Putting aside the arguments over the precise meanings of expatriate, migrant and immigrant/emigrant, another way to approach it is for each of us to explain what we are trying to say when we apply these words to ourselves.  This is not about right or wrong - this is Allow Me to Show You What I Mean by Telling a Story.  So let me tell you the story of how I've used those words (which I realize has never been consistent).  And then I'd like to hear yours.

When I first left my home country, I was very young and scared.  I had just finished university in my hometown and the only trips out of the US I had ever made were to British Columbia, Canada.  The ideas that I had about France and the French were informed by the language classes I took, the one or two French citizens I'd met, and the many books I read.  The word I might have used at the time was adventurer - here I was going off to this exciting, exotic place to live with high (and as it turned out) unrealistic expectations.  I would not have used the word expatriate to describe myself.  

Expatriate, in my mind, meant famous people like Hemingway, and this young woman from Seattle could not even pretend to be in that class of individual.  I was simply off to have a fine adventure and I didn't want to think too much about what that meant at the time and would mean to me over years.  

Migrant or immigrant would not have worked either because that implied to me an intention to stay in that country and make it my home. Even after I landed in Paris, I simply was not ready to make a long-term commitment.to a place I knew so little about. I was young and in love, the family was more than welcoming and I thought the country was beautiful.  Good enough.


The differences between my vision of France and the reality became apparent quite quickly and the awareness of just how hard it was going to be to make a life there was almost overwhelming. I would describe my feelings at the time as alternating between anxious and angry.  Finding a job was difficult since my French was poor and my credentials frequently misinterpreted.  Obtaining my residency card meant going to a clinic that resembled a factory processing cattle for a medical exam - the sheer humiliation of being part of a human assembly line waiting to be x-rayed and being asked intrusive personal questions by the immigration officials.  I may not have called myself an immigrant but I was treated as one and that was that.

And then there was the sense that my entire world had turned upside down and I could no longer do anything right. Life seemed to be an endless series of encounters where I was corrected or admonished for using the wrong words, not doing the proper thing or simply not understanding fast enough for the people around me. In this sea of uncertainty I clung to what I was, an American abroad, with all the desperation of the survivor of a shipwreck clinging to a lifeboat.  

Things got better.  I learned to revel in being different and I finally started expressing some of my repressed anger.  If the French weren't going to allow me to integrate (and that was the impression I had) and I had no chance of becoming one of them, then I was going to give them exactly what they seemed to want.  The word I used at the time with a sort of perverse pleasure was Exotic Beast and even guest:  this was a statement of superiority and an in-your-face expression of difference. 

That didn't last because who wants to live forever separate from the people around her?  It takes a lot of energy to keep saying to everyone, "I'm not like you."  Feelings aren't facts and I admitted to myself that maybe I misinterpreted the native citizen's motives. The resentment washed away and in its place was a strong attachment to the country and its people. I started thinking about becoming a citizen and eventually made my way down to the prefecture to ask about it.  It was at that time that I began to call myself an immigrant or migrant.  This was me saying that I was ready to make the commitment I avoided so many years ago.  

It was also an expression of solidarity - an admission that I am no different from all the other people from Algeria or China or Canada that I meet in the prefecture   I am not special, my experience is not unique.  Talking with them as we wait for the wheels of the French bureaucracy to spin,  I've learned that we have a lot in common. 

Yes, that was a revelation to me and who the hell did I think I was to assume otherwise?  And it is this experience that made Mawuna Koutonin's article so meaningful to me.   Yes, I've done that - the distancing dance.  And I directed it both toward my fellow migrants in France and against the native French as well.   It came from a place of anger and insecurity.  It was driven entirely by fear.

Today I'm living in Osaka, Japan.  This was something of a surprise but here we are.  My spouse is an inter-company transfer and we will be going home (that means France) at some point.  This is temporary and that changes everything for me.  I don't feel angry or anxious.  I'm not worried about integrating.  I will learn as much of the language as I can but it's not a matter of survival because I can't work here.  

My expectations are low and I'm learning to just accept what the universe offers me every day.  The word I use to describe myself now is expatriate which to me means temporary resident for a limited purpose and on someone else's dime.  And I feel a sense of deep relief when I use that word because it means I can relax.  I have nothing to prove here and I can kick back and enjoy the ride.

Reading over what I have written, I can see that the way I use the words guest, expatriate and immigrant is always dependent on my personal context and whatever meaning I was trying to convey at the time.  I went from thinking of an expatriate as an Ernest Hemingway when I was a 24 year old college graduate, to using it to describe myself at 50. I won't even try to convince you that it makes any sense at all.

It's just my story and I'm sticking to it.