Hernandez, Perry (week 4)

 Prior to this class, I had no idea what the word “Rasquachismo”. From what I could understand after reading Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto defines it as someone who is resourceful and able to transform something seemingly useless into something of value. It is quite funny that there is a word to describe this specific action. Growing up in a low-income Mexican household, I personally did not think much of it. My grandma would reuse candle holders as drinking cups, takeout containers were our “Tupperware”, grocery bags became our trash bags. I can’t remember a time my family did not repurpose items, especially if it was a container. It wasn’t until I came to college that i began to question it and felt a bit embarrassed because my white peers would think I was just hoarding. I grew ashamed of it until recently when I began to see white people on tik tok talking about ways to “reduce your carbon footprint” by reusing and recycling items. I thought it was both hilarious and frustrating that this is seen as the “cool” thing to do now, despite it being something many of us did becuase we were low-income.