>>>>>Hey! I'm not even a native speaker! :)
>>>>
>>>>Hey, you live in Miami, Florida, U.S.A.! Or are you one of the Cuban refugees? :)
>>>
>>>
>>>Not a refugee, just a naturalized citizen (25 years here). (not a Cuban either :)
>>
>>So, what's the criterion for being a native speaker? Been born there?
>
>
>I would say having grown up, gone to early school, so you speak it without an accent, or with the local accent if you wish. As opposed to a good dutch speaker that did not grow up in there so when he speaks dutch you can hear a foreign accent. I do have an accent in English that differentiates me from a local. I may not have an accent in English in the web :)

Fairly good criteria. I supposed that 25 years is enough to no longer have a noticable accent, but perhaps it's not always. Today I spoke to one of my brothers. He emigrated to the U.S. and he told me he was impressed by the relative fluency of English of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This Somalian woman has also impressed the Dutch. She spoke Dutch fairly fluent within less than 10 years.

She's the one who defended the 'right to offend'. It was a speech in English. Dutch media translated that as the 'right to insult' and many disagreed. It's my impression that some or most would not have disagreed to that extend if they'd translated it more correctly. What's in a word, ha.