The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio mounted the exhibition "Rasquachismo: 35 Years of a Chicano Sensibility" to mark the 35th anniversary of scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto's foundational 1989 essay theorizing rasquachismo. The show, curated by Mia Lopez and on view from December through March, featured works by major Chicanx artists including Yolanda M. López, Carmen Lomas Garza, Santa Barraza, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Patssi Valdez, Luis Jiménez, and younger artists like Ruth Buentello, Juan de Dios Mora, and Jimmy James Canales. Ybarra-Frausto credited Mi Tierra Cafe y Panaderia in San Antonio's Historic Market Square as a key influence on his critical eye, describing the restaurant as a "hotbed of rasquachismo."
This exhibition matters because it brings a homegrown Chicano aesthetic concept—defined by Ybarra-Frausto as a "bawdy, spunky consciousness" that subverts ruling paradigms—into the American art canon, where it had been less widely recognized. The show served as both a celebration of San Antonio's distinct aesthetic character and a validation of Ybarra-Frausto's theory, with local visitors telling him they now see rasquachismo everywhere in daily life. As artist Cruz Ortiz noted, Ybarra-Frausto helped start the Chicano intellectual lexicon, providing a "map" for a movement that continues to shape American culture.