Banuet, Haziel (Week Four)

Before reading this week's readings, I had never heard of the word rasquachismo, but I have heard of the word domesticana a couple times. Unfortunately I never knew what people meant when they refer to domesticana. To be honest when I first heard the word I had thought it was referring to domestic housework in the home done by women. But according to our readings in Chicana and Chicana Art, rasquachismo and domesticana in a sense define one another and  can be described as a shared sensibility. It is a collective ideology in the Chicano/x community that can be defined as an attitude or taste (p.81). It is a lived experience by those in the community and can be understood as a bicultural sensibility. Domesticana on the other hand represents the feminine elements that connect to the cultural memorabilia within the community and is often depicted in Chicana/x art.

Growing up I never identified as Chicana only because for me that was an identity someone grows up in and the word had never existed in my vocabulary until I got to college. Even today it feels odd to say I am a Chicana because by definition I guess I technically am. But as I grew up, there was this realization that there are many first generation Mexican-Americans that feel the same way I do. And the first time I realized this was when I was hanging out with my cousins. All of us are first generation kids and grew up around the same community. But one thing that I remember that became a shared memory between us was how for a long time we had this ongoing joke that “If you don’t have an art piece of the lady and the flowers in your house, then you aren't Mexican enough.” And the only reason we said this was because in each one of our houses there was the same replica of Diego Rivera’s art piece The Flower Vendor. I guess between me and my cousins that is one experience we all shared as first generation kids in a Mexican household.