Why is it always "expat" when they're from the US, and "immigrant" when they're from anywhere else? 🤭

🔹Immigrant: A person who moves to a new country with the intention of settling there permanently, often seeking citizenship or long-term residency.

🔹Expat: A person living abroad temporarily, often for a specific work assignment, with the intention of eventually returning to their home country.

Americans will use the term expat for themselves whether they plan to stay for a short or long amount of time, while referring to foreigners in America as immigrants without knowing anything about how long they plan to stay. 😆

Back when I was blissfully unfamiliar with American mentality, I would write about having moved from Denmark to Ukraine, here on SW. I remember many comments and conversations which baffled me lol – keep in mind, this was before the war, so they didn't know what Ukraine was (they still don't tbf).

I was of course an immigrant, because I moved from one country to another, as a non-US citizen. 🤓

I once had a conversation with a man who I'd gotten along with for a while. I don't remember how we got to the topic, but at some point I mentioned that it was my opinion that Denmark (my home country) should receive less immigrants, as Denmark actually does a really poor job of integrating these people into Danish society: They should spend less money on letting in as many people, and more money on helping the people they do let in, achieve an aduaqate amount of life quality.

I could never have foreseen his reaction. He told me that he was very disappointed in me, as I myself was an immigrant. 😆

Keep in mind, I didn't intend to live in Ukraine indefinitely, I planned to return to my own country after approximately 5 years. I just wanted to experience my husband's culture.

I didn't know what his problem was, so I laughed nervously and stopped talking to him after that – now I know that he was just an American. 😅

He obviously didn't know that Denmark is one of the top countries in the world, nor that Ukraine is a poor developing country.

I revieved other brilliant comments from Americans as well:

🔹You are smootching off another country!
🔹You are useless to society!

This was before even telling them that I didn't work. When I told them that, all hell broke loose. 😆

🔹Go home to your own country and stop being on benefits!

Like honey, this is Ukraine, they don't have benefits. 💀

My parents were fairly well off throughout most of my life, so they would send me what to them was a miniscule amount of money, while here being enough for us to live very comfortably + in Ukraine women aren't even necessarily expected to work, we're expected to do other things like cleaning, cooking, and even making sure our husbands look presentable lol: My husband's grandmother was very angry with me because I didn't force my husband to cut his hair short. 😆

Anyways, I didn't work because I didn't have permanent residency (I still don't), and didn't need to work anyways. I was just travelling.

Now of course it's a different story as Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, my husband can't leave the country during martial law, my parents went bankrupt, and now we struggle to survive. 😩

I hope the economy gets better again once the war ends, but for now I work by selling NSFW furry art online lol.

Oh well. It's still funny remembering these people now that I know what was actually wrong with them lol.