What Am I?

What if the hat doesn't fit?
Photo: ChIandra4U

I've lived in the Netherlands for almost 12 years . I've no plans to move back to my birth country, England. My family is here in the Netherlands, my husband and three sons that is. My sons are definitely more Dutch than British. I feel integrated into the Dutch way of life (as far as humanly possible with the exception of Dutch circle parties which I don't do).

The family I left behind is still firmly rooted in England and always will be. So there will always be a reason to return there. At least for visits.

I live in a world between being Dutch and being British.

So what am I? No, it's not a trick question. Technically I'm an expat.

According to Wikipedia,

"An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex ("out of") and patria ("country, fatherland"). In its broadest sense, an expatriate is any person living in a different country from where he or she is a citizen."

In more detail, Wikipedia describes the difference between an expat and am immigrant:

"In common usage, the term is often used in the context of professionals sent abroad by their companies, as opposed to locally hired staff. The differentiation found in common usage usually comes down to socio-economic factors, so skilled professionals working in another country are described as expatriates, whereas a manual labourer who has moved to another country to earn more money might be labelled an 'immigrant'."

So yes, technically I am an expat. I live outside my birth country and the one I was raised in. But I have always felt uncomfortable describing myself as an expat. The reason for this lies in the socio-economic implications of an expat, as described above. 

I worked for a company that sent 'expats' overseas for assignments. I wasn't in the same category as those expats. I was a different kind of expat. And consequently I have felt uncomfortable with the term expat to describe my situation. It doesn't feel like it sums up who or what I am.

Vegemite Vix (and the prompt for this blog post) posed this question on her blog: when do you stop seeing yourself as an expat and start seeing yourself as an immigrant who has moved for good?

Immigrant is defined as:

1. A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.

2. A plant or animal that establishes itself in an area where it previously did not exist.

I like the second definition by the way..... Can we change that to a person that establishes himself where he previously did not exist? That has a dreamy quality about it, and I can identify with that. A person that leaves one country to settle permanently in another. Permanently as in forever? Regular readers will know that I just covered that topic!  Am I an immigrant? Technically yes. Do I identify with that description? No. 

So I'm not an expat and I'm not an immigrant. Not in my eyes anyway. So what am I?

One reader of Mother in France's story offered the term "lifer" up. Not in the prison sentence way... but in the "move away forever" way. Vegemite Vix offered the term "New Dutch". Not sure what Geert Wilders would have to say about that...... Mother in France feels like an 'inbetweeny" too. 

I'm certainly not the only one with an expat identity crisis. What about you? What's a good word for us?