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I admit it, I do harbor a number of pet peeves. For example, the arrogant appropriation of the word “America” and “American” to refer just to the United States and its people, when even the Merriam-Webster Dictionary list that as only the third meaning, behind “a native or inhabitant of North America or South America” (although they left out Central America).

And my feelings about the use of the terms “expatriate” and its short form “expat” aren´t so different – rooted in smugness, arrogance, and oftentimes more than a little racism. Granted, Merriam-Webster does define “expatriate” simply as “someone who does not live in their own country.” But that definition seems to me to be behind the times, as “expat” has come more to have the connotation of someone who for work or study is living abroad temporarily, as opposed to someone who moves to a county with the intent of settling permanently.

This distinction often reflects perceptions from society, with “expats” – usually more educated, higher paid professionals from wealthier countries – typically viewed more positively than “immigrants,” who in this day and age of rage and disinformation are all too often used by demagogues and hatemongers to conjure up images of poor, uncouth black, brown, or yellow riffraff coming to steal jobs and benefits from local people as well as drive up crime and disorder (the BBC took a look at this phenomenon in this 2017 article which is still largely relevant today).

But statistics show that even poor immigrants are a boon to, not a drain on the economies of the countries they move to, often taking jobs that the native-born wouldn´t touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole (I mean duh – you don´t see folks in the U.S., Britain, or even Spain and Greece rushing to snap up jobs involving backbreaking labor and long hours under the hot sun in farm fields, do you?). And in fact, immigration has for example been in no small measure responsible for giving my new country Spain a booming economy with a growth rate that outpaces any other in the euro zone – 2.5 percent this year as against less than one percent or even zero percent for France, Italy, and Germany. Thus the center-left government here is encouraging rather than demonizing immigration (as has increasingly become the tendency elsewhere in Europe both east and west), while promoting aid to many of the countries (especially in Africa) from which illegal immigrants come to improve social conditions there and stem illegal immigration. A win-win, in my book.

Anyway, many of my peers from places like the U.S., the U.K., and Australia like to breezily style themselves as "expats," yet wouldn´t dream of bestowing this honor on my Venezuelan cleaning lady or my waiter friend from Morocco. So I find it a noxious form of snobbery that only perpetuates the idea that relatively well off (and often white) “expats” are somehow superior to the grubby, suspect masses disdained as “immigrants” or “migrants” who are takers and sometimes even destroyers instead of contributors. It feeds the cycle of hate and misunderstanding, and so it´s much more than a mere semantic difference. And that´s why I´m not only proud to call myself an immigrant but also feel that it´s vital for me to do so.