Comment by crystal_revenge
13 hours ago
Most American ex-pats don't really understand that the thing that makes ex-pat life so attractive is that, for most of people's lives, being American in a foreign country has traditionally conferred a wide range of benefits (this is most clearly exemplified by the way Americans living in a foreign country refer to themselves as "ex-pats" not "immigrants"). The ex-pat solution assumes American exceptionalism as its foundation.
Historically Americans have benefited from income asymmetry and a fairly wide-spread desire by foreign nations not to cause too much legal trouble for US nationals abroad.
I have quite a few friends that do live, quite happily, abroad. But the common pattern for them is a.) fluency in the native language b.) historical association with the country c.) fairly large cash reserves so they can ignore any economic problems these countries are facing.
Americans didn’t invent the term or the concept of “expat”, colonial Europeans have been doing it in Africa and Asia for centuries.
I don't see the parent comment saying that we did invent it.
*Brits
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, my European nation did a lot of bad shit, but don't put the idea of an "expat" on us.
expat is usually synonymous with fire/retire early. most people move to spain or portugal and see their purchasing power multiply.
That sounds more like FIRE / geographic arbitrage than expat in the traditional sense.
What people often mean by a "true expat" is something completely different: someone sent abroad by their employer, usually with a generous expatriate package (home-country salary, local allowances, housing, private schooling for children, etc.)
More broadly, though, expatriate simply means someone living outside their native country. Ex means "out of", and patria means "native country" or "homeland". It's that simple.
So the word itself isn't limited to wealthy retirees or corporate transfers. All immigrants are expatriates, although not every expatriate is necessarily an immigrant.