According to Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, the term “rasquachismo is neither an idea nor a style, but more of an attitude or a taste” (85). Meaning it is someone with an underclass perspective who finds resourcefulness in the ability to transform mundane, everyday objects into “unfettered and unrestrained, favoring elaborate over simple, the flamboyant, over the severe” (86). The term “rasquachismo” approaches aesthetics in Chicanx culture using a male oriented attitude, or lens. I admittedly have never heard of the words “rasquachismo” or it’s feminine counterpart, “domesticana” until I read this week’s readings, but I can see examples of it through memories of my friend’s families taking part of it as well which are eerily similar the way my family developed this way of living.
As a child, you would think that being part of a low-income family the idea of resourcefulness with mundane objects would appear in such a heavy-handed way. The reusing of every glass jar because it was simply sturdier and more economically efficient than buying a flat of mason jars to store dried goods was, for one, the most memorable. Even reusing heavily embossed ones for decoration or candles that lay out on other people’s altars because it cost the least bit of effort. However, it was one of the more creative ways, along with collecting bottle caps using them for a stringed-décor. While my experience with both rasquachismo and domesticana were the bare minimum, I still believe that I encountered the aesthetic and attitudes these two terms portrayed in more ways than one. I believe I just never thought twice about putting a name to it, however, remembering my education in my art history courses, the 20th century French artist Duchamp comes to mind with his assisted and rectified readymades when I explored images of rasquachismo and domesticana. To be fair, the concept of his readymades always irked me, whereas the example below was more appealing.
As a child, you would think that being part of a low-income family the idea of resourcefulness with mundane objects would appear in such a heavy-handed way. The reusing of every glass jar because it was simply sturdier and more economically efficient than buying a flat of mason jars to store dried goods was, for one, the most memorable. Even reusing heavily embossed ones for decoration or candles that lay out on other people’s altars because it cost the least bit of effort. However, it was one of the more creative ways, along with collecting bottle caps using them for a stringed-décor. While my experience with both rasquachismo and domesticana were the bare minimum, I still believe that I encountered the aesthetic and attitudes these two terms portrayed in more ways than one. I believe I just never thought twice about putting a name to it, however, remembering my education in my art history courses, the 20th century French artist Duchamp comes to mind with his assisted and rectified readymades when I explored images of rasquachismo and domesticana. To be fair, the concept of his readymades always irked me, whereas the example below was more appealing.
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