"Facts" about asylum seekers! (1 Viewer)

[ratmonkey]

we've been told to use international newcomer for essays and stuff in college as non national is an offensive term..

That term is ridiculous like. Extra-national maybe?

 

[ratmonkey]

Didn't you hear? Foreigners not only get free cars and fancy mansions, they also get record contracts.

That was back in the 80s though. Europe got one as well.

 

[muffin]

If you were born on a ship in interntional waters then you could be described as a non-national.

Nothing wrong with non national except for the fact it is gibberish. But "international newcomer" is just as meaningless.

international newcomer is pretty rotten..i was just saying that thats what we were advised to use..

 

[classic seanc]

"Exotics"

 

[ratmonkey]

When do they stop being newcomers?

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Totally...who are they?

Rory Bremner. It's a parody of Hardcastle's 19, released later that summer, which deals with the woeful performances of the England cricket team.

 

[jane]

When do they stop being newcomers?

After the difficult second album.

 

[cephalopod]

Heard an oul wan ask another oul wan on the bus this morning whether it was an 'irish person or another wan of dem foreign nationals that was got for the thing in galway' I'm assuming she meant the manuel riedo murder..but 'another one of them foreign nationals' what's that suppose to mean? I know I was only ear-wigging, but it seems that this oul one has built up an imaginary reality in her mind where 'foreign nationals' are killing Irish people??

 

[classic seanc]

Heard an oul wan ask another oul wan on the bus this morning whether it was an 'irish person or another wan of dem foreign nationals that was got for the thing in galway' I'm assuming she meant the manuel riedo murder..but 'another one of them foreign nationals' what's that suppose to mean? I know I was only ear-wigging, but it seems that this oul one has built up an imaginary reality in her mind where 'foreign nationals' are killing Irish people??

The victim was a foreign national. So the crime was to do with all dem foreigners rather than the rest of us, so we shouldn't really care about it.
I'm guessing that's what they meant.

 

[jane]

I though migrant would have a connotation of impermanence. Like going abroad for seasonal work.

That's kind of how I think it sounds, too. But that's the point: there is never going to be a term that 'works' so long as a whole diverse group of people are grouped together under a heading, united only by the fact that they were not born in Ireland (or were born in Ireland to parents who are 'international newcomers').

No matter what term people use, if they rely to heavily on the category the term refers to, it's never going to sound right. Also, it might be useful to ask people who are in this category of 'international newcomer' how they would like to be termed.

Me, I don't care, to be honest. I really don't like being called a non-national because it really is gibberish. And also, there was that whole period where it was like "Three non-nationals and two people were killed today," and while I knew they'd never use the term for me (I'd be an 'American', not even necessarily an 'American national' except when they call my name at the GNIB office), it still has unpleasant connotations.

Apart from that, I'd only be bothered by the context of a word, or how someone treated me, not the word itself. I reckon most of us foreigners are the same. It's Irish people that don't know what to call us because there's always going to be that conflict between the contingent who are keen to show respect, the ones who don't really give a fuck, and then the ones who want to make sure the foreigns know their/our place.

 

[cephalopod]

The victim was a foreign national. So the crime was to do with all dem foreigners rather than the rest of us, so we shouldn't really care about it.
I'm guessing that's what they meant.

Yeah, that sounds more like it, she meant 'another one of them foreign nationals' like manuela, its still depressing shit to be overhearing.

 

[Scientician 0.8]

How about ex-pat? That seems to be the word white people use when they turn up on fahrdin shores to live permanently.

 

[jane]

How about ex-pat? That seems to be the word white people use when they turn up on fahrdin shores to live permanently.

'Ex-pat' is a bit less value-laden, but actually, it sometimes seems to imply a sense of transience due to a perceived cultural/social/economic superiority. Like middle management from a US company that go to Budapest to set up the Central European HQ for two years and then go home and bore everyone fucking senseless with the same half dozen stories about the only two Hungarians they ever actually met outside of work.

It'd be much better for applying to Poles and Africans though because at least it doesn't downplay someone's free will, if it hadn't already been somewhat tainted.

I wouldn't consider myself an 'ex-pat' because to me, an American ex-pat is a guy in a suit and a pair of Chinos who eats in the Hard Rock Cafe. I think anything that puts too much emphasis on someone's non-Irishness is always going to be a problem because it's never going to make us sound like we actually belong here. Which is why no term is ever going to be really adequate. It's not a factor of the term, it's how it gets used. And since it's all about context, it doesn't matter so much what term someone uses, as long as it doesn't over-emphasise someone's outsider-ness. Cultural/national differences come up when they're relevant to a situation and they should be accounted for,but not the over arching concern.

 

[cephalopod]

How about ex-pat? That seems to be the word white people use when they turn up on fahrdin shores to live permanently.

Ex-pat reminds me of english cunts in gibraltar, the falklands, and the former rhodesia

 

[Scientician 0.8]

True.

 

[cephalopod]

New TV show for Channel 4..The Ex-pat House

 

[Scientician 0.8]

Ok then how about Irishish?

Throw me a frickin' bone here.

 

[cephalopod]

How about, the thoroughbreds (for Irish people who have 4 grandparents born here) and 'cross-breeds and mongrels' for everyone else?

 

[Unicron]

That term is ridiculous like. Extra-national maybe?

One of them.

 

[jane]

How about race traitors?

Or mongrels. Mongrels works.