CHST 1C rasquache paper PDF

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!1 Natalia Spritzer Natalia Villanueva-Nievas Ch St 1C - Intro Chicano/a STD 5/21/2019 Rasquache Analytical Paper: The Rasquachismo of the Cork-Nameplate Rasquache or rasquachismo is Mexican terminology, but its quintessence drifts on across countries in South America. In Brazil, rasquachismo is not translated, but it exists heavily in the majority of Brazilian households. When my parents immigrated to the United States as a broke college-aged couple, they were not shy of recycling and re-using items that were deemed as a one-time usage. My mother has always been very environmentally conscious, more so than my father, who re-used items for cost efficiency. My mother attempts to recycle and compost wherever she is and has inherited a familial principle for reusing or rasquachismo even if her family could afford to replace and buy an item for specific purposes. My father on the other hand, could not afford to buy items. His family relied on objects to have long lifespans after they were emptied of their intended contents. My dad took it upon himself to make these objects more aesthetically pleasing when he was younger, also using discarded materials for decorations. Once they both settled in Los Angeles, they became an unstoppable Rasquache team. My mom continues to use emptied containers as tupperware, however my dad does not have the time to decorate as many items anymore. They have kept particular items from their first ten years in the United States. The emotional value that my parents placed on the object runs consistent with the

!2 essence of the Rasquache resilience and stance. In addition, the object’s re-usage or adaptability parallels with Rasquache function. The nameplate card is a wine cork that has been cut 1/3 of the way and has a thin incision on the opposite side so it can hold paper. When my mother got admitted into USC with a full ride and a job on campus, my father opened a celebratory bottle of wine and kept the cork before they took off together from Rio to LA. My mom had received a small office in her building, and my dad called in a special favor to the office administrator: he had carved into the wine cork and inserted a card with her name on it and placed it at the front of the desk before my mom came into the office. It now resides on their shared desk at home 25 years later. The wine cork is more of a symbolic representation of my parents’ love for each other. Personally, this allows this very simplistic object to look very beautiful. Art without context is an empty shell. The cork-nameplate, although it is not aesthetically poignant, is extremely resilient because it stands for my parents’ adaptability from home as a team. Author Tomas YbarraFrausto describes Rasquachismo as “a stance rooted in resourcefulness and adaptability” (Ybarra-Frausto ,133, “The Chicano Movement/The Movement of Chicano Art,”). When families or individuals move across nations to settle down away from what was originally home, travelers engage in Rasquachismo: to travel and assimilate successfully, one must be resourceful and have adaptability. My parents were leaving Brazil for a whole new country, their only travel sized remnants of their home were each other. Through several means, they managed to make the United States home by

!3 being adaptable and resourceful and this resiliency to overcome obstacles through these means are entrapped in the meaning behind the cork-nameplate. My parents put meaning and emotion in objects once they left immigrated; Ybarra-Frausto explains that “rasquachismo is a sensibility attuned to matures and confluence” (133) and that is precisely what my parents were attempting to (both consciously and unconsciously) do as immigrants in a new and vast setting. As they became more integrated into a new land, their possessions were impacted by the confluence of immigrating and leaving home because they were attempting to make a home in the U.S. . The cork-nameplate is reminiscent of where my parents came from, whether or not it was brand new did not mean anything to them: “pulling through and making do are not guarantors of security, so things that are rasquache possess an ephemeral quality, a sense of temporality and impermanence- here today and gone tomorrow” (133). My mother’s cork-nameplate may not be reflective of Rasquache’s emphasis on bright colors or patterns and extravagance. However, its recycled, fragmented and re-purposed elements are pillared with Rasquachismo’s crucial combination of possessing meaning and re-usage. Author Amalia Mesa-Bains describes rasquache artists as “the irreverent and spontaneous [that are making] the most from the least” (Mesa-Bains, 157, “Domesticana”: The Sensibility of Chicano Rasquache), and my parents continue to value their creativity through repurposing even after completing their rites of passage to become American. They are proud of their immigrant and working class status- deeming everyone else’s opinion irrelevant to their creative takes on taking items that others may see as belonging in the trash and making it more suited for the home

!4 or for expressing their love for each other; “In rasquachismo, one has a stance that is both defiant and inventive” (Mesa-Bains, 157). Without acknowledging the meaning behind the cork-nameplate, it may just appear tacky and a disheveled choice in comparison to an actual and professionally crafted nameplate. This look of “tackiness” emphasizes what Rasquache consists of: “Rasquache, then, definiltye encompasses a funky, underdog, […] attitude” (Lomelí, “The Origins and Evolution of Homies as Hip Rasquache Cultural Aritifacts: Taking the Homes out of the barrio or the barrio out of the Homies,”). The cork-nameplate encompasses a pride in the working-class perspective, and “making the most with the least” (Lomelí, 112). The cork-nameplate was made as a movida: “Movidas are whatever coping strategies one uses to gain time, to make options, to retain hope” (Ybarra-Frausto, 133) and “rasquachismo is a compendium of all the movidas deployed in immediate, day-to-day living” (133). My father routinely kept wine corks overtime because they served as buoy markers when he fished in Brazil. With barely any monetary value when immigrating to the United States, he utilized the cork to express his love and pride in his wife who had successfully made a step towards a good living from the belly of a developing country. “Retaining hope” was translated through his gift to her, to remind her of where she came from and of his love. Although the cork is not aesthetically Rasquache beautiful or extravagant, it leans on its gesture as elaborate and flamboyant which persists with the extravagance of Rasquache themes. My immigrant parents have taken on the challenges of moving to an entirely new country, especially one such as the United States, a nation that has been modified by immigrants yet is known for the harshest immigration laws. The resilience and adaptability that immigrants

!5 must take on when leaving their home have existed before Rasquache and Chicana/o art . These themes of strength and persistence are what shaped Rasquachismo before it was defined. The objects in our daily lives are impacted by the changes we make even if they are seen as unnecessary and labeled as one time uses. My father’s gesture and his cork-nameplate creation encompass t meaning.

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!6 Works Cited Amalia Mesa-Bains, “Domesticana: The Sensibility of Chicana Rasquache,’ Azlan: Journal of Chicano Studies, vol. 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999), pp. 3-13 Franciso A. Lomelí, “The Origins and Evolution of Homies as Hip Rasquache Cultural Aritifacts: Taking the Homes out of the barrio or the barrio out of the Homies,” in Rutledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies: International Perspectives on Chicana/ o Studies. Eds. Catherine Leen and Niamh Thornton (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2013), pp. 109-128 Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, “The Chicano Movement/The Movement of Chicano Art,” in Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display. Eds. Ivan Karp and Steven D. Levine (Washington D.C: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1991) pp. 128-150...