Rasquachismo
Rasquachismo, a critical concept in Chicana/o cultural and visual studies, came into academic usage over two decades ago and is used to explicate a resourceful, working-class, neo-baroque aesthetic sensibility present(ed) in the productions of some Chicana/o artists. Within the larger field of Latina/o studies, “rasquachismo” exists alongside a cluster of terms that have been used to describe representational strategies, mass-produced material culture, and ways of relating to and undermining forms of power; these include chusmería, cursi or cursilería, choteo, and chuchería, which are used mainly, though not exclusively, in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. If we continue to expand farther outward, the much-written about concepts of camp and kitsch would be part of this constellation of signifiers that denote a style (or lack thereof) and/or sensibility. In this brief essay I focus on rasquachismo, but relate it to these other keywords since they all function similarly to denote an attitude that can be perceived in material, visual, and performance cultural practices produced by Latinas/os.