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An economic migrant changes locale to find work. A digital nomad has work but conducts it from various places, not just the locale if the business. It's not ju

by rfrey 2y ago

An economic migrant changes locale to find work. A digital nomad has work but conducts it from various places, not just the locale if the business. It's not just a racist term, they're different.

hombre_fatal 2y ago
I ran into this while living in Mexico, mostly from other cocksure expats. "Um, you're not an expat, you're an immigrant. Don't use the word expat, it just means white immigrant." As if my circumstance living a 10 year long extended vacation in Mexico, able to ripcord my life back into the US at any point + paid in USD, is in any way the same as a Mexican trying to immigrate to the US.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- gottorf 2y ago
  > Don't use the word expat, it just means white immigrant. This always was such a silly argument. "Expat" means someone in a well-compensated position living in a different country, usually sent by a multinational corporation, who expects to move back to their country of origin once their term is over. "Immigrant" means someone who expects to settle in their new country permanently. Usually the latter group is not paid as well as the former, due to the incentives involved; for the most part, well-paid people living in places that are good to live in don't want to relocate themselves permanently elsewhere.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  Yeah, I think about this quite a lot. After 35 years in the USA, with lots of "discussion" about immigration, its very clear to me that my experience as a white literally-Anglo male software developer immigrant has almost nothing to do with what people are talking about when they talk about "being an immigrant" in the USA. Seems like it would be useful to differentiate the parts that all immigrants have in common from those that we don't, but this appears to just come down to racism, so we generally don't.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
snakeyjake 2y ago
The reason is the same: $. There is one difference. Economic migrants are typically a net positive to the local economy while “DiGiTaL nOmAdS” tend to fuck things like rent and food prices up where they go.

by rfrey 2y ago

An economic migrant changes locale to find work. A digital nomad has work but conducts it from various places, not just the locale if the business. It's not just a racist term, they're different.

hombre_fatal 2y ago

I ran into this while living in Mexico, mostly from other cocksure expats. "Um, you're not an expat, you're an immigrant. Don't use the word expat, it just means white immigrant." As if my circumstance living a 10 year long extended vacation in Mexico, able to ripcord my life back into the US at any point + paid in USD, is in any way the same as a Mexican trying to immigrate to the US.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gottorf 2y ago
> Don't use the word expat, it just means white immigrant. This always was such a silly argument. "Expat" means someone in a well-compensated position living in a different country, usually sent by a multinational corporation, who expects to move back to their country of origin once their term is over. "Immigrant" means someone who expects to settle in their new country permanently. Usually the latter group is not paid as well as the former, due to the incentives involved; for the most part, well-paid people living in places that are good to live in don't want to relocate themselves permanently elsewhere.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
Yeah, I think about this quite a lot. After 35 years in the USA, with lots of "discussion" about immigration, its very clear to me that my experience as a white literally-Anglo male software developer immigrant has almost nothing to do with what people are talking about when they talk about "being an immigrant" in the USA. Seems like it would be useful to differentiate the parts that all immigrants have in common from those that we don't, but this appears to just come down to racism, so we generally don't.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

snakeyjake 2y ago

The reason is the same: $. There is one difference. Economic migrants are typically a net positive to the local economy while “DiGiTaL nOmAdS” tend to fuck things like rent and food prices up where they go.