Chapter 2. Who are the immigrants?

Immigrants, migrant workers, expats, refugees, relocates, displaced persons — how are they different from each other and what do they have in common? Let's explore these concepts.

First of all, it is worth noting that immigrants are not travelers. A traveler has a home to which they return after each adventure, bringing back souvenirs and placing them on shelves.

An immigrant is a person who moves from one place to another to find work or better living conditions, as described by the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. The key here is "better life," which is a natural aspiration of any person. Let's take this as a basic concept. Then how are refugees different?

According to the UN, a refugee is a person forced to leave their country and seek safety in another country. The reasons often include war, persecution for political, religious, or social reasons, and natural disasters. Thus, a refugee is an immigrant who is forcibly made to leave their country.

There is also the concept of an internally displaced person (IDP) - someone who has been forced or obliged to flee from their home or place of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or man-made disasters, and who has not crossed an internationally recognized state border, according to the UN glossary. The difference between a refugee and an IDP is the crossing of an international border. This distinction is very important for the UN and the allocation of budgets for humanitarian aid.

An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who lives temporarily outside their nationality country, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, which adds that in practice, this term is usually applied to professionals, skilled workers, or artists from wealthy countries who are often transferred by companies, rather than to all immigrants in general.

So, an expat is a temporary immigrant. How is it different from a labor migrant? Is it their qualification? Due to globalization, and especially after the Covid-19 epidemic, this concept has changed. "For people that we today call expats… living abroad is rather a lifestyle choice than borne out of economic necessity or dire circumstances in their home country such as oppression or persecution," says Malte Zeeck, founder and CEO of InterNations, the world's largest network for expats, with 2.5 million members in 390 cities worldwide in a BBC interview. "I use expat in a much broader sense of the word, describing rather someone who decides to live abroad for a specified amount of time without any restrictions on origin or residence," Zeeck says. "Immigrants are usually defined as people who have come to a different country in order to live there permanently, whereas expats move abroad for a limited amount of time or have not yet decided upon the length of their stay," says Zeeck.

Thus, the concept of expat today also includes the increasingly popular digital nomads. These are people who work remotely and move from country to country in order to explore other cultures, make new friends, and gain new experiences.

Within organizations that help their employees move and change their country of residence, such people are often called relocants, from the English “relocation” - the act of moving or relocating someone/something to a new place for work or activity, says the Oxford Learner's Dictionary. Thus, a relocate is an expat whose move has been organized (and often paid for) by their company.

In real life, people change their roles over the course of their lives. For example, a refugee forced to move to a new country because of war adapts and begins to lead the life of an expat, traveling around the world.

What is common among these concepts? All people who have left their entire country and familiar society for a new one undergo similar stages of adaptation. They are also called the "Immigrant Curve". More about her in the next part of the book.

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This is a draft version of the book. You can help to make it better - write in the comments your thoughts, stories, and lifehacks that can help the next generations of immigrants. I will add them to the final version of the book.

* - the meme picture here is just to get your attention. I don't mean to offend anyone. It is an irony of the way our society is organised to make more people think about who immigrants really are.