I think about this all the time. Particularly the language used around all of this moving around. I called myself an 'expat' (living in countries with a specific very privileged visa only because of job that my husband had) until just over a year ago. Now I call myself an immigrant. Again with incredible privilege. Today, one year+ into the process, the police came to verify that I actually did live at the address that is on all of the (paper) forms I have filled out. Thank you for the article about the words and power and stigma around the phrase migrant worker. We took all of these opportunities outside of our home country for economic and family reasons and we have decided to stay in the final country. The process has certainly been easier (but not swifter) because of the passport we hold. The words I use should be the same too.
I feel this deeply, having started life with a mediocre passport and then gotten the privilege of “upgrading” to a very powerful passport once I became an adult and had lived in the country we immigrated to when I was a child.
I think about this all the time. Particularly the language used around all of this moving around. I called myself an 'expat' (living in countries with a specific very privileged visa only because of job that my husband had) until just over a year ago. Now I call myself an immigrant. Again with incredible privilege. Today, one year+ into the process, the police came to verify that I actually did live at the address that is on all of the (paper) forms I have filled out. Thank you for the article about the words and power and stigma around the phrase migrant worker. We took all of these opportunities outside of our home country for economic and family reasons and we have decided to stay in the final country. The process has certainly been easier (but not swifter) because of the passport we hold. The words I use should be the same too.
The amount of bullshit I had to navigate to move from South Africa to the UK despite the fact that my own mother was a Scottish passport holder 🫠
It’s like they only wanted to be colonising and not colonised themselves
I feel this deeply, having started life with a mediocre passport and then gotten the privilege of “upgrading” to a very powerful passport once I became an adult and had lived in the country we immigrated to when I was a child.