WK 4: Rasquachismo y Domesticana

Rasquachismo is neither an idea nor a style but more of an attitude or a taste. The term has been associated with vulgarity and bad taste in the United States and Mexico, which infers a negative connotation. It encompasses the working class and Chicano communities. It was reinvigorated with the 1960s Chicano movement. It got associated with rejecting the whiteness of an experience. During this time visual arts such as murals and posters were significant. The art reflected everyday traditions, and paid homage to sensibility by restating its premises. It was a response to lived reality, along with having a “underdog perspective”, such as a lower class/ view from the bottom. The Intention was to provoke the accepted “superior” norms of the Anglo- American with everyday reality of Chicano cultural practices. The art associated with the term uses the most basic, simplest, and quickest means necessary to create the desired expression, in essence, creating the most from the least. It is stated that things are held together with spit, grit, and movidas. The term can also be used to reference the bicultural inspiration from which these artists draw inspiration. The attitude of rasquachismo is best exemplified in everyday life and forms of popular culture. Some examples presented at the end of the chapter were chanclas, shopping at JCPenney, Born in East L.A movie. It states that, “To be resquache is to be unfettered and unrestrained, to favor the elaborate over the simple, the flamboyant over severe”.

The term domesticana emerged due to an attempt to theorize the critical nature of domestic material. Cultural influences related to home, community, and their church all fed into the work of Chicana artists. The day-to-day experience of working class Chicanas was represented through home embellishments, home altar maintenance, healing traditions, and personal feminine pose or style. The home altar is most prominent, which is established through continuities of spiritual belief and challenging male -dominated rituals within Catholicism. It is often located in the bedroom which is considered a private place some examples of this are decorative elements such as-flowers, family photos, candles and offerings, along with memorabilia, saints, and icons. Domesticana comes as a spirit of Chicana emancipation grounded in advanced education and to some degree Anglo- American expectations in a more open society. A characteristic of domesticana are techniques of subversion through play with traditional imagery and cultural material. Through this term, Chicanas were able to challenge existing community restrictions regarding the role of women. Since many Chicanas are raised in houses that praises male over female, and old over young, this expression of art is important and powerful for women to see because it challenges these superior norms.