Go to Spotify or Apple Music and choose one of your favorite songs. It’s very likely that one element of Latin music shows up at the second beat.

It doesn't matter if it's a jazz standard or a reggaeton song - the rhythm, sound or instruments will have at least one root in Latin American culture, and that is a fact that few people recognize.

When we think of American folk music, it’s sometimes difficult to put a finger on a single genre. We can go from the Appalachian Folk of Frank Proffitt to the American Pie choir of Don Mclean, without knowing exactly what makes a song have a purely American sound, if such a thing exists.

If Donald Trump has been able to do something during these last four years, it has been to highlight everything that’s broken in the United States, such as the virulent perpetuation of the myth of purism in a nation with a history traditionally summarized in the textbooks from a white man’s point of view.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The roots of African and Irish music managed to merge into calls and responses that crossed rivers and fields and polished a distinct sound to the point of giving the world one of the first concepts of popular music.

When that construct faced the Caribbean sound, American culture and idiosyncrasy changed forever.

Before Shakira, before Daddy Yankee, before Bad Bunny, before all the songs that resonate in American clubs, there were decades of mergers based on a single Latin rhythm that laid the foundations of world genres such as rock 'n' roll.

So when you hear someone again say, "Go back to your country," you can say with confidence that we have actually never left, and that this country, our country, has been built by and for us, whether they like it or not.