no, they dont mean exactly the same thing, band. they describe the same person. an immigrant moves into a country (for instance, in the us we have a lot of mexican immigrants) an emmigrant leaves a country (in mexico they would say there were a lot of mexican emmigrants in the US, if they were speaking english that is) the person is the same, and is an immigrant and an emmigrant by performing the same action - moving from their home country to another. but they describe different aspects.
I looked this up 2 years ago when I was wondering the same thing. they have nearly identical (albeit reversed) definitions in the dictionary I checked, and were considered synonymous in a thesaurus.
My friend married a Chinese man whose father hated it here. Why he moved his entire family here then, I'll never know. He was pretty pissed that his son didn't want a mail-order bride, though... BTW, his mother has been here for 40 years and still does not speak english..
emigrants I'm getting fed up with them they get free money from the taxpayers and then they go in to town and beg and play horrible music really gives me bad headaches and then if they are not happy about suffin in the country they start making demands they should all just go back home and some dont even bother to learn english it really gets on my wick when you phone up somewhere like if your trying to order a takeaway or suffin you cant understand what they are saying
These are the type of people I'm talking about. I mean I have been here about 20months and I can speak Thai. Not fluently, but well enough. Two days ago, I met an older guy who had lived here for 10 years and I had a conversation with his wife that he could not understand. He was just listing all the things that he didn't like here. I just don't get it.
First off girl, they're immigrants. Secondly, you're Irish. What the hell do you think our ancestors have been doing for the past 250 years?
Is it wrong that I don't care about my Irish heritage at all? I mean, I am a lot Irish, but I get annoyed when people are all Irish-proud of their Irish heritage here in America Other ancestries are interesting to me, for some reason I tell people I am Russian even though I am equally Irish
I don't know. If I was you the first thing I'd be telling people is that I'm american. After that, what part of your heritage you choose to flaunt is more personal choice than responsibility.
^yeah, thats how i feel. my ancestors were primarily scottish and german, but i am not scottish and i am not german. a good friend of mine annoys me a lot...she's always talking about how shes irish. she's american, born and raised. i KNOW her family has been here for at least two generations before her, probably more. she mostly uses it to justify drinking a lot, which to me doesnt really need justification. she does what she likes. its not cause she's irish, it's cause she likes drinking. she was upset that her boss "made the irish girl open the morning after st patricks day" but whatever. this is one of the very few things about her that bugs me. whew, i feel better now
i'm a big fan of moving. i love living in new places. i've always had a wanderlust. i find it difficult to like anywhere for very long. i get restless. once you get the full vibe of a place, it's time to go to the next one. if at all possible, bring along your love of new things and a genuinely appreciative attitude. though milan, NM is the biggest, stinkiest toilet on the face of the planet. it's worse than Orange County and LA. *shudders* you could always tell you were "home" by the shit smell. and everyone was on welfare, had shitty attitudes, and a nasty tendency to sneak up to your windows when they knew your husband was gone. fuckers.
People choosing to hang on to their heritage or not has a lot to do with their upbringing I think. A lot of people like to have a group/nationaliy to associate themselves with. I don't find anything wrong or right with it. I think it's a natter of perseonal choice. What does it matter who your great-grandfather was anyway? The reason why I was getting on the young girl's case about her ancestors was just to highlight how easy it is to be 'forced' into being an immigrant in another country.
I think its interesting to know where your family came from, but not to use it as your identity some chick I went out with painted an Irish flag on her graduation hat for college I should have just dumped her then, instead of 6 months later