Week 4

The sensibility of rasquachismo, as described by Ybarra-Frausto in Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology is a dynamic “visceral response” (85) to biculturalism and struggle coming from a dignified and resourceful mindset. I think rasquachismo as an aesthetic reclaims bends an outsider’s established conceptions of a lower lifestyle to become a sense of reclaimed power and resolved grit to make the most of what is there. Additionally, the improvisational practice combining traditional vernaculars with American mass culture mirrors the intersectionality of a bicultural community’s identity as a whole. Even further, domesticana, the female continuation of rasquachismo, shows a deeper sense of intersectionality. Like we discussed in the first few weeks, a Chicana woman faces not only the same struggles of the Chicano community but the struggle of the dominant patriarchy within the Chicano community. In adding the additional aspect of gender in domesticana, the women artists often sought to reclaim spaces that perpetuated the oppression of the female body like the church, the kitchen, and the bedroom. For example, Amalia Mesa-Bains used traditional altars to honor and elevate strong female figures in the same way the church would male figures and holy bodies. Both are forms of resistance to social norms and attitudes towards an underdog sense of resourcefulness. Although clear that both sensibilities share ideas, domesticana deals with the additional layer of gender. Domesticana serves as a deeper form of rasquache reflecting on the dynamics of a Chicanas’ own identities and roles in the Chicano community.