Culture

But What Even Is an Expat: Unpacking the Highly Contentious Term, in Vietnam and Abroad

“Expat is a racist as hell term” — this is the take of Misan Harriman on the popular internet show SubwayTakes. The reasoning goes that the term expat, short for expatriate, is racist because it is applied to migrants unevenly. Along this line, Mawuna Remarque Koutonin writes in Silicon Africa: “Africans are immigrants. Arabs are immigrants. Asians are immigrants. However, Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for ‘inferior races.’”

By San KwonSep 2, 202615 min read