| April 15th, 2018 |
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) myfyr came across a thing recently in which people were discussing the usages of "immigrant" and "expat".
I didn't read it, but the bit he read out to me featured the people involved concluding that expat meant immigrant but white and being angry about that.
Which struck us both as odd because neither of us agree with that.
We spent some time discussing what the nuances are in that, and came up with:
Expats are, in our dialect:
- people from a Commonwealth country in another Commonwealth country (phrases like "American expat" don't work)
- not necessarily permanently relocating, generally not citizens of the country in which they live
- unless they're English, because English people don't necessarily become one of us
It came up again today, because we were watching the celebration in-stadium from when Malawi beat New Zealand at the netball in the Commonwealth Games, and observing that it looked like most of the crowd were rooting for Malawi.
Australians love an underdog, which Malawi unquestionably were; Australia and New Zealand are netball powerhouses. Half the crowd would have cheered for Malawi if they were playing against Australia, let alone New Zealand, our trans-Tasman cousins/friends/mortal enemies.
And, of course, there'll probably be some supporters who came from Malawi, "... and basically every African expat," he said, without thinking about it.
So that.
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