Week 6 Blog Post - Rasquachismo and Domesticana

 Based on this week’s reading “Domesticana: The Sensibility of Chicana Rasquachismo”, Rasquachismo can be defined as the concept of making things work with whatever is at hand or available. From my understanding, Domesticana is similar in that it takes the same concept,but it is applied more so towards the domestic space;which is traditionally maintained by the women of the family. Though I have never heard of these concepts before, I interpret them as a survival mechanism; it is encouraged to be resourceful. 

I’ve never heard of this terminology, but the concept deeply resonates with the way I grew up; I am the first born daughter of immigrant parents and I do come from a low income background. Taking this into consideration, my parents were always working. My dad is a painter, he works for a company that focuses mostly on repainting and cleaning up apartments after people move out. Because people move out, they always leave things behind. My dad is a funny man in that he always manages to bring random objects back home. Throughout the 10+ years that he’s worked as a painter he’s brought home a series of random household items. He’s brought back, lights, toys, shelves, bags, many pots and pans, and sometimes even dressers and chairs. Oftentimes, we don’t even need a lot of the things he brings back to begin with, but the idea is that he enjoys making them somewhat useful in the end, and therefore necessary. Sometimes, we do need certain items, and he happens to get lucky and finds what we’re looking for left behind. Once, he even brought me back a keyboard, which I had been begging for. The things he brings back don’t always seem like they’re going to fit, but we make it work; we make it useful. Reflecting now, it makes me realize that I kind of do the same thing. Logically speaking, I feel that my family is like this because as people that have never really had too much in material goods, it’s very difficult to see things go to waste. We always find value in the things that seem like they hold no more purpose ,and that has a lot to do with the concept of Rasquachismo; making things work with what you have.