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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 19, 2009 17:27:31 GMT
As far as I can tell, there are many people here who have settled somewhere other than where they were born and reared.
I'm definitely a transplant in more ways than one. My home town is really my mother's home town. Since my dad was in the Air Force, we moved frequently, spending summers with my mother's parents.
So, I'm originally from Louisiana in the US, but moved myself to the city of Oaxaca in Mexico almost 12 years ago. I now live just outside that city.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 17:35:05 GMT
Just 12 years ago? You're still a tourist!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 17:45:47 GMT
Living here full time since 1978,am still considered a Yankee which really doesn't bother me in the least. I consider New Orleans my home ,but will always be from New York. I've gotten about as close as a local can get without being a native and understand that whole phenomena. There are people who live in my home town and have been there 30 years but they are not natives,try as they might think they are.
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Post by gringalais on Jun 19, 2009 19:58:27 GMT
I've moved around a lot. In the US I have lived in 7 states. This is my second time here in Chile, in October I will have completed 7 years here this time. I also spent time time In Spain as a student. I hate answering the question where I am from. Most people want me to pinpoint one place but that is hard to do. I was born in the Hamptons in New York, so people say, oh, so you're from New York, but I left when I was 9 and have only been back a few times, so I don't feel much of a connection to the area. Here I have just decided just to say San Francisco, since that is where I was living before I came here. Makes it simpler. Most people here are either born and raised in Santiago or they moved here as young adults because there are more work opportunities than in smaller towns and cities. Moving around a lot is not common and some people don't really get it.
Casimira, my parents have lived in North Carolina since 1992, I think, and are still considered Yankees too.
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Post by imec on Jun 19, 2009 21:35:25 GMT
Born in from Merseyside in the northwest of England. Moved to Winnipeg when I was 9 and have been here for 42 years (except for 3 years in KSA). Most of our friends were born and raised here.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 21:45:10 GMT
gringalais,which town in the Hamptons were you born?
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Post by traveler63 on Jun 19, 2009 22:43:46 GMT
I was born and raised in Southern California, now referred to as So Cal.!!!! I grew up in Orange County when there were honest to God orange trees. I remember climbing one and watching as they bulldozed trees to make way for the Elementary School I would go to. My stepson, wife and grand daughters live within 15 minutes 0f downtown L. A. We met them for the first time in April of this year. We drove from Tucson to L. A. Won't do that again. Flying next time!!!!
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 20, 2009 4:08:03 GMT
I've been transplanted more times than I care to remember. Mostly because of my father's job working for a big construction company. Then there was a quiet period from the mid 80s to the early 00s. Last transplantation was at the end of 2005, first to Malaysia, then in 2006 to Cambodia. No plans for more transplantations anymore but you never know.
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Post by gringalais on Jun 20, 2009 19:32:22 GMT
Casimira - when I was really young we were in Westhampton, and then my parents built a house in Speonk when I was in kindergarten.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2009 21:08:17 GMT
My bother is in Westhampton Beach, a little further down the road(west)then were I grew up,Bridgehampton.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2009 22:18:25 GMT
When I moved to France, the country went into recession just when I got fed up with my job and left it. My dire straits probably provoked a sudden surge of homesickness which made me wonder what I was doing in Paris and maybe I should return to the U.S. Luckily, this passed relatively quickly.
However, over the years, I have never encountered a single expat who has remained in the country 'forever' (I am not an 'expat' because I am a 'binational'.). I have seen each and every one of them return 'home' after one or two or five or ten years. The only one who did not return chose to die here (although she could have chosen to continue to live with proper treatment).
Has anybody encountered a real transplant who never ever considered going home?
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 26, 2009 3:51:57 GMT
There are quite a few here. But it's a different situation from being transplanted to a country similarly developed as the home country I guess.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 26, 2009 5:12:27 GMT
Heavens, yes. I believe I've mentioned before the lady I know who moved here in 1951. (born 1919) She's only been back to the States once in all that time, sometime in the early '90s, and has no desire to return. I know another woman, closer to my age, whose parents were (I believe) English and American, respectively. She is a brilliant person & has worked a great deal in the US, but is a Mexican citizen and refers to herself as Mexican. Another close friend, a man a couple of years older than me, has been here twenty years and can't envision living in the US again. My closest friend made the commitment to stay here when she came @11 years ago. And I don't like to say "never", but I would miss Mexico too much to ever want to live in the US again.
I think a very big difference between north American expats in Mexico and those in other places is the proximity to "home" -- it just doesn't feel that far away, which maybe makes it easier psychologically to stay here .......... and stay and stay and stay.
That said, I've known quite a few people who packed it in and went back to the US. I would say in every single case, they were people who never assimilated here in the slightest degree.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2009 5:45:14 GMT
Real transplants are almost impossible to distinguish from the locals.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 26, 2009 7:15:40 GMT
What are you going on about?
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Post by bjd on Jun 26, 2009 8:46:23 GMT
I was born in England of Polish parents, went to Canada when I was 7, then left for good when I was 25. At one point in the early 1980s, when I used to go visit my family, I sort of wanted to return to Canada because I had the impression that all my friends had easier lives (big houses, lots of stuff) whereas we were living in a walk-up apartment. But that passed fairly quickly and even though I go and visit my mother, my sister and friends every couple of years, I would never consider living in Canada again. I feel like a foreigner when I go there, although I am not convinced that anyone can "become French".
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Post by rikita on Jun 28, 2009 20:31:43 GMT
local is an interesting term... how do you define it really? let's say, just as an example, if i moved to peru, i would obviously look non-local, but so would my children (especially if their father was also german, for example) - would that make them less local?
well anyway i still live in the city i was born in and close to which i grew up... the thing here is (as i suppose it is with a lot of capitals) that the majority of people living here weren't born here. there are some people that are from here and you can tell, that is mostly older people or people from the outskirts though. with younger people living in the more central parts, i would guess in most cases you can't really tell if they are from here, except maybe from the accent. and i would guess for those people it doesn't play as big a role if someone is originally from here. for example i know my dad's wife is from southern germany, but she knows berlin better than me, and i would consider her as "local" as me...
(sorry for getting off-topic)
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 28, 2009 21:01:32 GMT
Hardly off-topic, Rikita, and some interesting points.
That "real transplants" thing is a Kerouac interjection, anyway. I was sitting quietly on the bus the other day, wearing a typical, locally made dress, when a student got on and as soon as he saw me said "Hi!". I responded in kind, as I don't mind being taken for what I am -- a person from the US.
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Post by gringalais on Jun 28, 2009 21:48:33 GMT
When I moved to France, the country went into recession just when I got fed up with my job and left it. My dire straits probably provoked a sudden surge of homesickness which made me wonder what I was doing in Paris and maybe I should return to the U.S. Luckily, this passed relatively quickly. However, over the years, I have never encountered a single expat who has remained in the country 'forever' (I am not an 'expat' because I am a 'binational'.). I have seen each and every one of them return 'home' after one or two or five or ten years. The only one who did not return chose to die here (although she could have chosen to continue to live with proper treatment). Has anybody encountered a real transplant who never ever considered going home? I haven't either. Most seem to go back after a few years.
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Post by rikita on Jun 29, 2009 14:00:47 GMT
actually, what is the main difference between immigrants and expats? the reasons for migrating (i.e. interest of living elsewhere vs. survival), the number of people (individuals vs. whole groups)? just wondering...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2009 14:45:37 GMT
Good subject for a debate, although I would say that in most cases expats are self-proclaimed temporary residents (transferred for work and such).
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Post by rikita on Jun 29, 2009 15:43:06 GMT
so you think the temporary aspect is the deciding factor?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2009 15:44:20 GMT
Really? I disagree, although I imagine the problem with those words is that each person might attach a different meaning to them. I guess because my dad was in the Air Force, I don't think of people who are in a foreign country because of their jobs as expats. I thought expat meant anyone living in a country other than his own, with the further sense that the expat doesn't intend to return to the home country to live.
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Post by rikita on Jun 29, 2009 15:48:37 GMT
then what is for you the difference between an expat and an immigrant? which would you call yourself? which would you call a mexican moving to the US? or are they just two words for the same thing? then why does one never seem to speak of american immigrants to (wherever) but also hardly ever of let's say mexican expats in the US...
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Post by tillystar on Jun 29, 2009 16:33:50 GMT
From my point of view expats are people who haven't permanently emigrated and retain citizenship of their original country. They usually still have financial ties to their original country - pension or paid by an employer based there, so you get expat tax & healthcare issues. Immigrants on the other hand plan on staying permanently and usually have to get citizenship of their new country, do not have financial ties with their original country and are taxed at that end on income. Bit of a boring tax related definition though
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2009 16:48:03 GMT
Rikita, technically I am an immigrant since I have legal permanent status in Mexico.
I think Tilly's definitions are probably the most accurate. I hardly ever use the term "expat", as it has a frivolous, cocktail-drinking, stick-with-your-own-kind, colonialist flavor to my mind. But really, that's an emotional response to the word, not a logical one.
I think of immigrants as people who made a conscious decision to leave for and stay in another country. This also technically covers me, but in common with most American & Canadians in Mexico, there's the knowledge at the back of our heads that we could return to our native countries, simply because of proximity.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2009 16:50:53 GMT
Europe is full of both expats and immigrants, so the dividing line is very fuzzy. However, it's true that 'immigration' is considered to be a permanent decision with an eventual change of nationality, while being an expat is a conscious decision to retain one's foreign status.
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Post by tillystar on Jun 29, 2009 16:53:32 GMT
Yes, it makes me think of ladies with orange wrinkled skin, long painted talons, straw blonde hair and clicky clacky shoes sipping G&Ts on the veranda and beating away flies in disgust while they moan about the "bloody locals".
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Post by bjd on Jun 29, 2009 16:59:17 GMT
I never considered myself as immigrating to France. I just moved here without any special long term plans. I have French citizenship, as well as Canadian, even though I don't bother with a Canadian passport.
Even though for the Soviets it was considered an insult, and was mostly used as a euphemism for Jewish, I rather like the term "rootless cosmopolitan".
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2009 17:16:32 GMT
Oooo! As soon as I finally achieve the merest shred of sophistication, I'm going to insist on the rootless cosmopolitan designation!
Yeah, Tilly, you nailed a certain type of expat. They clump in certain venues, are generally loud, don't bother learning the language as they "know enough to get by" (read: order a drink), gossip about each other, and enjoy discussing "the servant problem". That would be the servants they can't afford in their own countries. I have a friend who refers to this type of expat as "colonials".
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