When do you become a migrant?

So, you find yourself away from your birthplace, from home, maybe even abroad. Does that make you a migrant? Depending on the time spent abroad, you might as well be one. But crossing a border makes you a migrant? Getting a residence permit in the country of destination makes you a migrant? Getting a job abroad? A work permit? Or maybe working undocumented? Voting in elections at the embassy of your country? Perhaps all of the above. A TV beer commercial aired in my home country proclaimed that you, as a teenager boy, - yeah, it was kind of gender-biased, but that's not the issue here, and yeah, I grew up quite early, but that's also not the issue - you become a grown up when you have your first beer with your father. By analogy, if you allow me, you become a migrant when you transfer money home to your folks for the first time using a money transfer operator. Today, I became a migrant. It feels good. Although I cannot get rid of a dilemma: does a 6% transfer fee make you more a migrant than does a 6% alcohol by volume beer with your dad make you an adult?

To tell you the truth, in the former case, I can also add that I am working abroad, and more specifically I work on migration-related issues, I have a residence card, do not recall how many times I have crossed the border, voted in elections like a good citizen that I am, and for a few days I've also been an irregular migrant worker but shhhh.... Basically, money transfer is the cherry on the cake, the end of my migration bildungsroman, the beginning of the diaspora experience. In the latter case, well, let's just say that 6 beers later I felt quite responsible, adult-like, I mean, it was the first time I decided to use the actual toilet and not the bush. On the other hand, 6 beers later for my dad didn't feel that much adult-like, more like puerile, or how would you call him giving cartoon names to each bottle of beer? We had Tom, Jerry, Spike, Scooby, Shaggy, and Mr Flinstone, the favorite. So, if your first beer with your father makes you a grown up, what does it make him? I don't know, but what I do know is when it's clear for your folks that you've become a migrant: yes, exactly, when they send you the first package with home-made pickles, across borders, in a mini-van. Pretty much in the same way I got abroad (in a mini-van, not in a jar of pickles). Legally. Until next time, stay legal.