Roberto Bedoya, cultural activist and Executive Director of the Tucson Pima Arts Council, recently wrote on creative resilience in communities of color, highlighting the Chicano practice of Rasquachification as a method of this resilience.  

As cities all across the US rapidly gentrify, the voices of people of color and the poor go unheard, their culture and histories erased. “The Rasquache…is the culture of lowriders who embrace the street in a tempo parade of coolness; it’s the roaming dog that marks its territory; it’s the defiance signified by a bright, bright, bright house…” Bedoya writes as he makes the case for placekeeping—the importance of honoring the cultural lives of the community, of making sure the cultural history is protected and preserved.