Expatriating while Black, with Amanda Bates

Borderline

People of all kinds – yes, people of color too – go abroad to live, love and learn. They study a language, they follow a partner, they go just for the heck of it or for a midlife crisis. Sometimes, they flee war or poverty, but not usually.

Tired of not seeing her story represented, Amanda Bates created The Black Expat – a media centering the stories of Black global citizens. In this episode, she discusses her TCK childhood between Cameroon and the US, the challenges of life in-between and who gets to be called an expat vs. an immigrant.

00:00 Intro

01:55 A TCK childhood

06:14 An American teenager in Cameroon

09:08 A Cameroonian student in the US

12:56 Why TCKs and first-gen college students relate

16:43 Minority students and the study abroad experience

18:34 How to become a Borderline member

19:40 Centering the Black expat experience

22:27 Blackness is not monolithic

29:07 Expat vs. immigrant and the power of words

38:17 Outro

The Black Expat is at theblackexpat.com, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Its podcast, The Global Chatter, is on all the usual podcasting platforms.

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