zlacker

> English has this distinct connotation for the word "immigrant" and it's associated with individuals overwhelmingly based on their country of origin (the poorer the country, the more "immigranty" the person).

I was born in Australia, my mother was born in Scotland. In my mind, that makes me a second generation immigrant. I never thought of my mother, or her parents, as "expatriates".

A lot of Australians who immigrated from the UK and Ireland identified themselves as "immigrants" not "expatriates".

>>skissa+(OP)
Australia is different from most other rich countries now receiving immigrants (and "expats") because its mainstream culture (not the native culture, which would be aborigine) is itself founded by immigrants from the UK in the relatively recent past... and there has been continuous immigration from many parts of the world since then... I guess that's the reason Australians still see people coming to Australia from rich countries, including the US and European countries, as immigrants... it's not a dirty word over there, as the majority of Australians are only third or fourth generation at most and therefore consider themselves descendants of immigrants. It would be kind of absurd to think of their grand-grand-parents coming to live permanently in Australia as "expats" (though I don't doubt some of them coming today might call themselves that)!

But in rich countries that are old enough to have a population that already forgot they probably also came from elsewhere (populations have always moved around, replacing, killing, and/or mixing with the locals), recent waves of immigration are always from poor countries with a very different culture/language (so that they have trouble assimilating, getting jobs, contributing and so on... and many end up giving up and start to feel marginalized, causing some to appeal to crime) which made the word immigrant have a very negative connotation... hence the need for people from other rich countries to distinguish themselves from those poor people and call themselves something more respectable like "expats".