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"A Lot You Know about Us Monkeys": Representation and Reference in Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

A black-and-white cop car and a black-and-white cab cruised past each other. We're in a good part of Oakland, which used to be restricted. "No person of African or of Japanese, Chinese, or any Mongolian descent will ever be allowed to purchase, own, or even rent a lot in Rockridge or live in any house that may be built there except in the capacity of domestic servants of the occu pant thereof." Lance was living there in an integrated marriage, and Wittman was walking there. Oakland Tech ought to be teaching this localest history. (150) This passage condenses many of the anxieties that contributed to the social climate of Northern California in the 1960s, during which time Kingston's novel is set: the references to racially determined integrations and prop erty restrictions indicate the increasingly prevalent politicization of race in the discourse of citizens' rights; the vaguely threatening presence of the "black-and-white cop car" suggests the spirit of confrontation between government authority and many elements of the general populace; and the reference to "Oakland Tech" explicitly invokes the university campus, the site for much of the radical political and social action that marked the decade. This last detail demands further elaboration. The narrator seems to note a deficiency in the academic sphere's articulation of "history"—specifically in its determination of what historical phenomena should be taught. But the narrator offers no specific corrections or clarifications; even the phrase "localest history" leaves open a few key questions. For instance: How local is "localest"? Is this regional history, or history at the level of the city, the neighborhood, or the body? Moreover, given how Kingston's notoriously complex text situates its characters and readers, what counts as "history"? These questions are especially vexing given the difficulty of delimiting MELUS, Volume 36, Number 1 (Spring 2011)