{"id":61,"date":"2025-12-14T10:25:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T10:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/?p=61"},"modified":"2025-12-14T10:25:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T10:25:34","slug":"the-rhetoric-of-expat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"The Rhetoric of Expat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I would find this annoying if I were not professionally and intellectually interested in the rhetoric of definitions. &#8220;Expat,&#8221; informal for <span data-dobid=\"hdw\">expatriate<\/span>, is a contested term. The standard dictionary denotation is &#8220;a person who lives outside their native country.&#8221; By this definition, a refugee escaping crisis and a rich retired person holding a &#8220;golden visa&#8221; are both expats.<\/p>\n<p>An immigrant is, by dictionary denotation, an expat.<\/p>\n<p>But it is never that simple because words have connotations &#8212; the denotation plus all the baggage we heap onto it. Connotations are sites of political, economic, and social struggle (i.e. the baggage).<\/p>\n<p>While preparing to move to Portugal three years ago, I made a documentary series about my experiences for YouTube. Here&#8217;s the one about the term &#8220;expat.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Our Expat Journey to Portugal: The E-word and I\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gsxrvucf3Ts?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I ended the series shortly after arriving. Perhaps I should have kept going. When I re-watch these today I feel the cringe. I knew a lot. But I also knew very little. The me three years in has more interesting things to say about all of this now.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;m busy actually making documentary films in Portugal about Portuguese topics. So I will let that work speak for me. You may <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@acline\">follow my progress on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I would find this annoying if I were not professionally and intellectually interested in the rhetoric of definitions. &#8220;Expat,&#8221; informal for expatriate, is a contested term. The standard dictionary denotation is &#8220;a person who lives outside their native country.&#8221; By &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/?p=61\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentary","category-rhetoric","tag-definitions","tag-documentary","tag-rhetoric"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhetorica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}