Rasquachismo is an attitude or taste that artists take on as an expression that is often incorporated in their artwork. It is very prevalent amongst the Chicano community in both art and life as it is used as a response mechanism to limited sources. Despite the connotations rasquachismo displays to have, the creativity nonetheless displays fine art through a sense of lived reality. “Social class is a deĀnite indicator of being rasquache—it is a working-class sensibility (a lived reality)…” (86) and as I understood it, it is very common in middle class families. Similarly, when I read Yolanda M. Lopez, Davalos explains how Margaret, Lopez’s mother had an immense impact in her art. She taught her how to challenge gender roles and how the use of inexpensive materials can still produce fine art. Lopez took this as a way to help express her own sensibility as Davalos says, “Her use of unrefined materials emerges from her family’s rasquache sensibility” (14). Limited resources didn't stop her from making her art, it just turned her to a different style—being bold. It meant that every household item would be used, and no item would be thrown away, instead it would be recycled, for example discarded coffee cans used as flower pots. Much of the dominant culture rejected the bicultural life because it was deemed “un-American”. However in response, chicanos created their own idea of “wholeness and completion” and disowned their views. Like Lopez, using recycled materials allowed her to reject the Eurocentric notions of fine art because her art was fine art regardless of material cost. Nonetheless, the Chicano community was able to redefine the term. One example I personally have is using old butter containers and using them as tupperware. However, here I present a picture I found online that shows a bathtub being turned into an alter for La Virgen de Guadalupe. I personally thought the picture really embodied rasquachismo with all the use of recycled materials.
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