PRAGUE

I’m sitting in a Prague bar talking to three American expatriates when I learn a word that’s part of the expat lexicon here in the Czech Republic: czechxican.

“What the hell does that mean?” I ask my companion.

“We all get paid in cash, under the table, since we don’t have work permits,” he says. “So we call ourselves Czechxicans.”

I nearly spit my beer trying to keep from laughing. Oh sure, the politically incorrect nature of the term doesn’t jive well with my College Democrats membership, but my love of portmanteaus wins out. And come on, he can’t be serious. It’s not that hard to get a work permit over here; you guys are actually legit. Right?

“It’s not a big deal,” he says, unfazed. “Most schools and bars are fine with paying you cash.”

Wow.

Contrary to the name of this column, I am not an expatriate. I’m here in Europe for just three or four months, and I’ll be home by summer. I have a visa, but it expires in June. Compared to many Americans in Europe, the duration of my stay is a blip on the radar, an extended vacation. Nonetheless, in bars and restaurants and on the street, I’ve met a number of expats living in Prague, a few dozen of the hundreds of thousands of Americans currently living abroad.

Expatriate communities have been around as long as there have been people to form them. Throughout American history, expatriates and their friends have been responsible for some of our nation’s greatest artistic achievements. In the years following World War I, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot and other famous writers created their own expat community in Paris, working on their stories and poems by day and getting rip-roaringly drunk by night. Langston Hughes and Charlie Parker created a similar group in the Paris neighborhood of Montmartre, then known as “the Harlem of Paris.” The beat author William S. Burroughs lived with his friends in Mexico for several years, completing his first two novels in the process.

I don’t know if any of them will write the next “Great Gatsby,” but the Americans in the Czech Republic are a diverse and interesting bunch. There’s the acoustic guitarist who plays at some of the expat bars around town. There’s your typical SoCal University of California graduate, who’s spending a few years in Europe teaching English while trying to figure out what to do next. There’s the girl who spent five years as a dancer on cruise ships, then came to Prague and ended up marrying a Czech man. Now she says, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to go back.” Finally, there’s the twice-jailed drug trafficker who now makes money writing children’s books. No joke.

The reasons for leaving America in the first place are varied as well. Some just wanted to try something new. Some of them never felt like they fit in with people back home and are trying their hand at a new country. Others don’t care for American culture or politics – I’ve heard more conversations about the 9/11 “conspiracy” than I care to discuss.

But ultimately, the expatriates are not that different from the denizens of Foggy Bottom. They might work on legally questionable grounds, but for the most part, they wouldn’t seem out of place at the local Starbucks or pickup basketball game. At least at first glance.