The global community of English-speaking individuals who settle in countries other than their native lands is currently embroiled in a heated discussion over semantics. The discourse of discontent focuses on the English-language terms “expatriate” and “immigrant,” which can be used as nouns or adjectives to describe those who move to other nations on a long-term or permanent basis.

English-language news publications in Costa Rica tend to apply the term “expatriate” mostly to foreigners who have moved here from Canada, Europe and the United States, although those who come from other English-speaking nations, such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc., also get the “expatriate” treatment, which is invariably shortened to “expat.” This linguistic choice is also practiced by The Costa Rica Star, although on some occasions we have reported on expats from Suriname and Nicaragua. Our reference is the Princeton WordNet lexical database, which offers the following meaning:

A person who is voluntarily absent from home or country

A recent article published by The Guardian, a respected news publication from the United Kingdom, has set off a tiff in relation to the use of “expat” versus “immigrant.” According to author Mawuna Remarque Koutonin:

What is an expat? And who is an expat?

 

[you] should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his [or her] skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad.

 

Africans are immigrants. Arabs are immigrants. Asians are immigrants. However, Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for ‘inferior races’.

The author further cites a blog post on The Wall Street Journal. In late 2014, Christopher DeWolf posited:

In Hong Kong, a city where everyone seems to be from somewhere else, just who is an expat, anyway? The question has framed the push and pull I feel between this city, my home of six years, and Canada, my birthplace […] So it’s strange to hear some people in Hong Kong described as expats, but not others. Anyone with roots in a Western country is considered an expat. But the distinction is muddied among Hong Kong’s deeply entrenched Southeast Asian community. Filipino domestic helpers are just guests, even if they’ve been here for decades.

Spanish-language publications in Costa Rica do not run into this conundrum. The prevalent style is to refer to an expat or immigrant as an “extranjero,” a foreigner. As stated above, The Costa Rica Star uses “expat” in many articles related to immigrants; the exception occurs when the facts of the news report suggest that a foreigner is a perpetual tourist, a temporary visitor, a refugee, or someone seeking asylum.

The previously cited article in The Guardian set off an avalanche of nearly 3,000 comments and more than 450K shares across social networks. The author finished the story with a sort of “call to arms” message:

Most white people deny that they enjoy the privileges of a racist system. And why not? If you see those “expats” in Africa, call them immigrants like everyone else. If that hurts their white superiority, they can jump in the air and stay there. The political deconstruction of this outdated worldview must continue.

Mr. DeWolf’s conclusion for The Wall Street Journal is more philosophical and not as terse:

Maybe that’s what an expat is today: not a foreigner, not a sojourner, but someone who lives between worlds.