Communicating with people of a different culture is always an exercise in guesstimation and patience. Misunderstandings are rife because a certain expression or a gesture means something in one culture but can mean the complete opposite in another, or can mean something similar but different enough to swerve the conversation into a whole other direction. And then there’s the Finnish way, something I’ve noticed all too frequently here. 

As those who spend any amount of time with me know, I am very passionate about differentiating between the cross-cultural and the intercultural because terms matter. We assign different needs to different terms and not using the proper term, takes away agency from the group it was meant for. In practical terms this means that the needs of an immigrant will be different to those of an expat, who again can have different needs from an EU citizen. 

Can an EU citizen be an expat? Absolutely, in fact many are and this is regardless of color. They can be expats in the countries bordering those where their passport is from and as far away as to necessitate a 24-hour flight. And they can emigrate to another country with the intent of setting down roots whether that place is close by or extremely far away, thus making them immigrants. The terms are determined by the desire of the subject and never by the country they came from or the color of their skin. The days of the poor immigrant with only a small bundle on his spindly shoulders are long gone. The concept is as dated as the century which coined the term. 

The rule is simple, if you are moving somewhere with the intent of setting down roots i.e. making the new place your home for the rest of your life, you are an immigrant, regardless of color. If you plan to live in one or more countries for a certain amount of time before moving on or moving back to where you came from, you are an expat. 

EU citizens fall somewhere in between. Since the EU was created with freedom of movement for its citizens in mind, it makes sense that we have it. This means we can move to Finland for a while (as you can move to any EU country), hang out, live and learn, then choose if and when we want to move on. Our needs will be vastly different, which does not mean that one need is more important than the other, just as the needs of you and your family members will be different to those of another family. Mislabeling them will not make the problem go away. It will only amplify it. After all, if you hate being referred to as “Swedish” or “Russian” or even just “Scandinavian” why should those standards not apply to us as well?