I grew up in Saudi Arabia, where my family had no inclination nor legal standing to gain citizenship. We were clearly, and regularly identified as expatriates.

In Dhahran, there were a large number of foreign workers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, who performed a variety of menial labors. These laborers would often have their passports held by Saudi nationals, go periods without pay with little food, or live without provided housing. They were clearly and regularly regarded by many in that town as 'lesser' in some degree or another, most likely because of their countries of origin.

Although some would call them 'migrant workers' or 'immigrants', these people were also referred to as 'expats' by the majority of the expatriates I knew, and their employers. I distinctly remember someone correcting me when referring to them as immigrants.

This is an argument over semantics, but not an insignificant one. you're claiming a particular word that I have used throughout my life to identify a great many people is an inherently bigoted instance of double-speak that masks the differentiation between classes of countries people come from.

the truth is, "expatriate" is a respectful way to refer to people working outside of their own country. What the word is "meant to convey" is as amalgamous as the people that decide to use it, as is true for all words.

If you see it is a differentiator between have-and have-not country origins, fine, but you are putting quite a bit of stock in someone's language choice reflecting a particularly heinous belief or acceptance. I assure you that there are a great many people that do not use this word as you have described it.

Thanks, that is interesting.

I should have added the caveat that I'm speaking from a western perspective (and the irony isn't lost on me that I missed this while making claims about xenophobia :).

see my comment to rmc below.

didn't mean to be argumentative, I appreciate the discussion!

Interesting perspective, but I'll point out that I was mostly talking about the Anglosphere / West when pointing out the expat/immigrant disctinction. Often words mean different things in different contexts.

Saudi expatriate culture, by and large, is a great example of Anglosphere/West culture. The majority of expatriates in Saudi (at least when I was there, moving target) were from Texas. Oil production experience, and all.

In all honesty, my experience with people correcting my usage could be a back-lash of the very usage of the words as you had described them. The culture there has been using the word 'expatriate' for decades, and there was probably a stigma avoiding using the word as a class designator that manifested itself in a gentle 'scolding' for my usage in the way you described.

I agree with you completely; for these words, context is everything. Intent in usage plays a big part as well.

It's a bit silly to only talk about the Anglosphere/West when the word is used in a global context.