The term rasquachismo is seen as “an underdog perspective—a view from los de abajo”. It deals with finding the ability to reuse different materials or objects and finding a use for them. In simple words, it refers to making do and the best with what is available to one. There are many different stances taken by people on this, some such as those pertaining to higher social classes may deem practicing this as “ghetto” and negatively associate it with this. On the other hand, it can be seen as something clever and creative, for example using a one-time use object and finding a way to reuse it and repurpose it is helpful for the environment. Unconsciously I myself have been practicing this, in the ways in which I keep shopping or grocery bags to later reuse them for trash or other groceries again. Also, when buying any food product that comes in a plastic container my family and I always tend to wash and reuse the container rather than throwing it away. In a way, it is also economically beneficial to do this because rather than buying, in this case, plastic containers, one can find use in them and save some extra cash. This also correlates back to benefiting the environment by repurposing one-time-use objects. Plastic is hard to completely discard and purchasing it less, in this case, slowly helps the environment. My grandmother in Mexico uses the silver canned jars that come with beans/corn to place her flowers and the beauty of it is that it is able to grow in it and also she’s finding a use in something that would have just been thrown away. Regardless of what people may think, I believe that rasquachismo shouldn’t have a negative connotation to it but rather a better and more optimistic tie to it.
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