Yes, emigrants and immigrants are the same people, but they are separate roles of the same soul.

Oh the blessings of being an immigrant,
to live in a country with so much natural scenery, mountains, rivers, valleys, space to live...'lebensraum' as Germans call it.  My father had the dream after being in the Merchant Marine of Holland and seeing Seattle and Vancouver he was lured, postwar, to escape all the Re-occuring ethnic divides, 'nationalities and principalities fighting for power, wars after wars...and for what. I was 8 when I left,
     Now, even 62 years later, I still manage to utter that Dutch in a way that my family and friends can understand me...?

Oh the sadness of being an emigrant.  To lose your extended families, have all your values constantly challenged, treated like an outsider and leaving grief behind when you see your grandmother for the last time.  Here 6 decades later, my nostalgia for the reflecting canals of Amsterdam on my way to school will always be missed...and the sense of community, the feeling of being safe as a kid on the street, with everyone looking out for one another.  I miss the history, the lapses of time, the stories of the past, the respect for the architecture...the parks where I played, the food that we ate, my grandparents. In short, emigration is a sort of inner ethnic cleansing...storing the past, and creating a new life.