For a long time now I struggle with the expression “expat”. Our journey here in Australia for sure started off as being expats but it developed into so much more. When I write about this side of our lives, trying to describe the longing we had before moving and the experience we had afterwards, I always try to find the right expression.
The words Expat and immigrant just simply don’t cut it for me. Especially when I look at their definitions:
Expat:
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing, as an immigrant, in a country other than that of their citizenship. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (“out of”) and patria (“country, fatherland”).Immigrant:
Immigration is the international movement of people into a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle or reside there, especially as permanent residents or naturalized citizens, or to take-up employment as a migrant worker or temporarily as a foreign worker.
I said before that both of these words don’t really cut it for me. That doesn’t mean that each of them describes what we are in a way and yet they don’t.
Yes, we are permanently residing in a country other than that of their (original) citizenship. But by now we are actually citizens here. So does that mean we are no longer expats? We also didn’t move around on a regular basis just like “normal” expats do. We had no deadline, had no move home date in our calendars, knowing our stay would have us tick off another country on the map, of course making friends and memories but never settle for good really.
We also moved to a country of which we are not natives and originally did not possess citizenship of. The plan was to settle here. So maybe we were much more immigrants than expats. And yet we never knew if we would be able to.
I tossed this words around over years and years, especially over the last two years writing this blog. I wondered if I’m rather an expat or rather an immigrant. I wondered how to best describe this rearranging of things, habits and connections. And today I had this realization.
I’m a transplant!
To be honest, I did not come to this realization all by myself. Like many times before I was inspired by a comment of a blogger friend of mine on my Changing Skin post. My friend who blogs at My Self Evident Truths mentioned the word in her comment, leaving the link to this post there.
For the first time I had a word for our situation that I thought matched exactly.
Transplant:
A person or thing that has been moved to a new place or situation.
It’s exactly the way I see us. We have moved to a new place into a new situation. Just like a transplant we were removed from a place and then settled into a new one, implanted in a new place we grew to. A place we started working in, started functioning, adjusting to the new environment, in such a way that we now belong to it. We connected and the pulse of the new place is ours now. If you would remove us from here now, we would bleed.
I believe that if you consider yourself an expat or immigrant you never truly let go of the place you left. You feel you are still part of it. A transplant in my eyes is different though. Of course it bled when it was removed, after all it was part of something. There was a risk it would not work well in the new environment, maybe never be a successful implant but once it is, it belongs. And when it belongs removing it would lead to more bleeding.
A transplant can’t just simply be moved around. It’s a one time shot. I I feel it’s exactly what describes us.
I love that perspective! I think you nailed it π
and btw I LOVE switzerland, it’s close to my heart. (Mom grew up in Luzern)
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Thank you. I really think I finally find the right word for “what” I am. Luzern is a beautiful city in a beautiful area of Switzerland. Do you speak Swiss German?
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No but I understand it perfectly. π
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π
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Well, that’s already a great thing. Kind of like my daughter π She refuses to speak Swiss German…
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I hate to speak it…
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I think it’s the issue with my daughter too. All of us, including my son, sound like Swiss because we are used to making the ugly kkkkk sound. But she’s not. So she sounds like an English speaking person speaking Swiss German and therefor she hates it. As she says: “It’s not my language”…
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I can understand that. How old is she?
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Just about 10
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Yes I would say Transplant is a perfect word. I like how you describe it , great job!
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Thank you π
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Such a different perspective – I admit, transplant kind of put me off at the beginning of the post but by the end – it made perfect sense!
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It really does to me… Much more than expat or immigrant…
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I agree too! You are not an expat, nor an imigrant, that’s for sure… I’ve been an expat when my family moved to Guinea for 5 years, but to me, being an expat is a temporary thing. Imigration, on the other hand, feels like a need to leave your home country (again, my feeling… Dictionaries might not agree with my way of thinking lol) Choosing to move permanently to another country is a whole other situation, and I really like your idea of “transplant” π The image is perfect π
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I think you totally got me π
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Gruessech
I do not really feel like a transplant. My Mr. Swiss tells me I am often more Swiss than the Swiss, although what that means I am not sure. After 50 years Swiss life, I suppose I am. I migrated to Switzerland because I wanted to live in another country and speak a different language – silly I know. I found my job, went to ZΓΌrich and worked there for two years before moving to Zuchwil, Solothurn, where i worked for Robert Bosch and met my Mr. Swiss. We have now been married for 48 years. Do I miss my British roots – no not at all. I speak Swiss German mainly, although Mr. Swiss can speak good english. I cook Swiss, eat Swiss, think Swiss and vote Swiss (at least Mr. Swiss votes and I sign). I got my swiss Passport on the day I got married in Switzerland at the Zivilstandsamt in solothurn. I still had my dad in England and would visit in London about once a year. This year he passed away at the age of 100 years 7 months and now my contacts to England no longer really exist – just a few cousins, so I will probably never return. I do not miss England and over the past 20-30 years felt like a fish out of water when I visited. I am not transplanted, more absorbed.
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Hey, that’s a great word too! Absorbed… yes, that describes it perfectly well! I’m sorry to hear that you lost your Dad but what a great age! I hope he was well till the very end. My Dad passed away this year too. He would have turned 95… Someone said it’s the year the great souls leave us…
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I did a little research on the noun and verb form of these and others, and I can only conclude that it is context, not definition that matters here. Expat is, to me, slang, and somewhat derogatory, although it could just be lazy language to. Immigrant is most definitely a way of describing someone not from here. Smacks of -Gangs of New York – “Them immigrants are taken jobs even the blacks (n-word) won’t take”. So surely you are a citizen of Australia and the only non expats there are the Aboriginal people. Same as in the US, so people need to get over themselves, nobody is better because they are “from here”. English was invented but people who came up with things like a den of lions, a murder of crows, a pod of whales … Is all that really necessary? Rant over …
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Good points! Really good points and I agree, everyone besides the true native Australians (and Americans) are expats or immigrants. You nailed it.
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you’ve described it brilliantly. i love the word transplant and I do internally struggle with the word expat and immigrant. Transplant is far more befitting!
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I think so too. So I will call you transplant from now on too π
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hehehhehehe! Transplanted!
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Makes me so happy that one of my posts inspired one of yours! As usual, I have read the comments to see how your readers view your use of this term and I see that perhaps some additional explanation of what I think is our mutual use of this term in this context would help. When a growing, living thing is successfully transplanted, it continues to thrive if it is planted in an amenable soil and climate and lovingly cared for. That pretty clearly describes your position in your adopted home country of Australia and makes you truly a transplant there.
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Yes! Exactly!!! Thanks for adding this π
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You’ve definitely grown new roots that are firmly fixed and ‘transplanted into the Australian life…
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I am. And I love it!
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Wonderful!! xx
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Thank you
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