Is the word "expat" part of your identity?

Maybe I am just not thinking too hard about it all - but I'd tick all of the above!  Yes, I'm an expat, yes I'm an immigrant, and yes I like my life here & feel very much at home here - so in that sense, British too (not to mention that I naturalised).  I don't think I have to choose one or the other or another.

I don't think about labels every day - just living my life like others have mentioned.  Still I do have almost daily reminders that I'm not from around here (it happens nearly every time I open my mouth to speak! other than at home, that is...by my very American accent people can't tell that I've been here 7+ years instead of 7 minutes) - but I'm used to it now & it doesn't bother me.  

I enjoy telling people about where I'm from & how I came to be here, if they're truly interested when they ask.  If they're not, that's fine too & the conversation moves on.

I totally agree Mrs. Robinson.  I don't really love the area we live in right now, but that can be true anywhere.

Otoh, that other group, let's just say I do miss my soap at home.  Ahem. 

Heh. I've been dealing with the "where are you from?" question my whole life. I never developed a Southern accent (much to DH's disappointment) despite growing up in Tennessee, so I even got the question where I was born. I certainly didn't sound like I was from Rhode Island when I lived there for a bunch of years. So it isn't all that different here, except people are much more startled to hear an American accent out here in the boonies.

I think I watched too much TV as a kid to develop a regional accent. Though, get me drunk enough or mad enough, and I go full-on cornpone.

Heh. funny you should mention that.  I get the "where are you from?" alot.  I don't have the total New Yorker accent, and my tone gets so neutral that people can't place me unless I say "Shuah" or "Chawclit"

But what I'm finding quite interesting, is that a good number of people assume I'm african american and are slightly confused when I say I'm Puerto Rican.  This did surprise me the first time I heard it.  I've been asked if I'm Hawaiian, even Samoan....but never African American, so it had me a bit wide-eyed  

I first moved to Kenya nine years ago so I was considered a 'white person'. Then I moved the UK I now I feel more American than expat. Now that British citizenship is on the horizon later this year, I am trying to feel the connection, but when I mention it in British circles they just say I will still be American. Well yes, of course, so what's the point then?

Maybe I am just not thinking too hard about it all - but I'd tick all of the above!  Yes, I'm an expat, yes I'm an immigrant, and yes I like my life here & feel very much at home here - so in that sense, British too (not to mention that I naturalised).  I don't think I have to choose one or the other or another.

I don't think about labels every day - just living my life like others have mentioned.  Still I do have almost daily reminders that I'm not from around here (it happens nearly every time I open my mouth to speak! other than at home, that is...by my very American accent people can't tell that I've been here 7+ years instead of 7 minutes) - but I'm used to it now & it doesn't bother me.  

I enjoy telling people about where I'm from & how I came to be here, if they're truly interested when they ask.  If they're not, that's fine too & the conversation moves on.

I feel exactly the same way!  I associate with all the above, including being "British" (as I naturalised a few years ago). I feel like I fit into both places now. If truth be told though, on most days, I don't even think about being anything but a happy and content human being.   

Now that British citizenship is on the horizon later this year, I am trying to feel the connection, but when I mention it in British circles they just say I will still be American. Well yes, of course, so what's the point then?

The point is you will be able to vote & that lovely maroon passport --> ability to move throughout the EU!  You get a certificate that says you're British now (of course, not the same thing as being English, Irish, Scottish, etc --- none of which I will ever be, because I'm American), so if you want to think of yourself as British like the certificate will say - why shouldn't you?  What other people think is irrelevant, IMO. 

Your post reminded me of an unpleasant encounter I had here in town shortly after I had naturalised.  I started up with a book group that met locally, and one of the members there was a French woman who had apparently lived here in Britain for most of her adult life, and she had also apparently naturalised as British too - much easier, I think, for someone else from the EU(??) or else it had certainly been easy for her as she had done it many years ago when UK immigration was a doddle as far as I can tell.  I think she was married to someone English & she is/was a solicitor here.  I was introduced by my friend as being an American who lived here in town married to an English person etc, to which I added that I was now a dual citizen - so also British.  The French woman (who was just a generally rude individual as I will soon explain) responded, 'Oh you mean you have a British passport?  I  have a British passport.'  Maybe it wasn't a big deal to her, but still...  I remember thinking - wow you're supposed to be a solicitor & you think they just hand British passports out to anyone whether they're citizens or not? 

I don't remember what I responded, but I was a bit offended by that reply & coming from someone for whom the whole process had clearly been beyond easy, whereas I'd paid a hella lot of money & had to take the KOL test & all that jazz.  D*mn straight I'm going to think of myself as a British citizen! 

It got even better with her as the book group went on.  She held forth & monopolised the entire book discussion, hardly giving anyone else a chance to contribute, because of course her opinions must be heard.  And she managed to turn the general conversation round at least 2-3 times about some horrible thing that Americans had done - of course looking at me when she spoke of those issues, as if I was personally responsible for Dubya, the war in Iraq, and some other issue involving American corporate ownership of a local company that had gone into administration owing payments to local people over asbestos contamination.

So yep, she was just a rude idiot!  And the book group completely disbanded shortly thereafter...hmmmm, wonder why? 

Sorry 'bout the off topic rant, but I was just reminded of that now funny experience. 

I'm British, and I dare someone to say otherwise. I am not a second class citizen.  While some people are British by accident of birth, I am by choice. We paid a lot of money and endured a lot to get to me holding a maroon passport. 

I might not be English, Welsh, Scottish, or otherwise (although a case can be made that my heritage comes almost solely from these islands), I always put "white British" on those questionnaires when I bother answering them.  I suppose I could put "white other", but it's self-defined.  It's such a weird thing that someone could be born and raised here as an Asian and not be "English" and someone could have all their ancestors come from here and not be "Welsh" either.  Just shows that ethnicity is a weird tribal hold-over that means little.  They expect it to be defined by the person being asked, so don't let anyone tell you how you should identify.

I might not be English, Welsh, Scottish, or otherwise (although a case can be made that my heritage comes almost solely from these islands...

Heh - I'm an ancestry hybrid of Danish, English, Dutch, French, German & Swedish, but it's just easier to say an American-born who moved back to the old country, and became British! 

Heck, I naturalised a week and a half ago, and I feel British!  Or at least, I'm getting to feel British, as the whole thing sinks in.  I was worried that my application would be refused (long story), so hadn't let myself get into the mindset, in case it didn't happen.  Now that it has, I've realised that I feel different.  It's like all my efforts over the past three years to adapt and feel at home here have coalesced, and this is really the place where I belong.  A lot of people naturalise for practical reasons, but I really feel strongly that you shouldn't take another nationality unless it's of a country that you really feel a connection to, and want to be a part of.  I've always loved living in the UK, and becoming a citizen is like the cherry on the Bakewell--brings it all together and makes it complete. 

Heck, I naturalised a week and a half ago, and I feel British!  Or at least, I'm getting to feel British, as the whole thing sinks in.  I was worried that my application would be refused (long story), so hadn't let myself get into the mindset, in case it didn't happen.  Now that it has, I've realised that I feel different.  It's like all my efforts over the past three years to adapt and feel at home here have coalesced, and this is really the place where I belong.  A lot of people naturalise for practical reasons, but I really feel strongly that you shouldn't take another nationality unless it's of a country that you really feel a connection to, and want to be a part of.  I've always loved living in the UK, and becoming a citizen is like the cherry on the Bakewell--brings it all together and makes it complete. 

Yay! Congrats!

What other people think is irrelevant, IMO. 

Yep, that is what I am thinking. 

I've never really thought about myself as being an 'expat'. Hubby moved to the States for the first nearly five years of our marriage and we are here now. We talk about going back 'sometime', and I am sure we will someday but there is no big hurry for it. I am happy here although I miss people and some things at 'home', and when we do go back there, I will miss things here, which feels like home after almost two years. I have always felt we are two people in an international marriage who happen to live where we happen to live.

I was fine at first, and then woke up one morning missing everyone and everything and had to start my period of adjustment, but it didn't last too long. I think it was when the 'fairytale feeling' of moving to an enchanted new country wore off and I realized I was still cooking, cleaning, shopping, and everything else that comes with normal life but couldn't just hop in the car and go visit mom whenever I wanted because I was 4000 miles away. Now England feels like home, and for all the feelings of 'can't wait to get home for a visit', I find myself thinking of here as home while I am in the States.

I don't really identify with being an "expat," to be honest. Right now I'm just an American living in the U.K. Neither myself nor my husband (also USC) have any ambition to make the U.K. our forever home, however lovely the experience has been so far. 

Expats in my mind seem to be living a life somewhat beyond what I'm doing. They often have a great corporate sponsored (and often enviable) lifestyle, live among large communities of other Expats and often pack up and move somewhere else every few years. I think many people here intend to fully stay in the U.K., or (in my case) return back to the US when the job requires.