Class and Privilege in Anita de Monte Laughs Last

Thematic Claim

In Anita de Monte Laughs Last, class and privilege function as invisible gatekeepers that determine whose art is seen, whose story is told, and who gets to define their own identity. Raquel Toro, a working‑class Puerto Rican art history student, and Anita de Monte, a Cuban conceptual artist married to a famous white male artist, both navigate institutional and interpersonal systems that demand they shrink, perform, or commodify their backgrounds to gain legitimacy. The novel argues that lasting recognition in the art world depends less on talent than on the ability to leverage—or be consumed by—privilege.

Tracing the Theme Through Three Plot Threads

1. Anita’s Art as a Commodified Identity

Anita’s narrative reveals how class and privilege operate inside a famous marriage. Her husband, Jack Martin, repeatedly introduces her as his “little Communist Cuban girlfriend,” turning her family’s trauma—her father’s imprisonment, her flight on Pedro Pan—into cocktail conversation (Jack Martin chapter 4). When Anita corrects the record, stating her father was merely a middle‑class Catholic who opposed Batista, Jack glares: he needs the edgy story for his own persona.

The conflict crystallizes in the bathroom conversation with dealer Tilly Barber. Tilly advises Anita to “choose”: she can be an artist or a kept woman. Tilly implies that Anita’s luck—meeting Jack, wearing Bergdorf dresses, using a Helena Rubinstein facialist—is worth more than her talent. The advice is a blunt lesson in class pragmatism: a woman of color without family wealth should accept her secondary role. Anita’s refusal leads to her defiant dance in silver sequins at the party, a moment where she seizes visual attention but cannot escape the fatal fall that follows. The silver sequins become a symbol of her reclaimed power and her entrapment—they sparkle as she spins, but the same dress is later remembered only as the costume of a dead spectacle.

Anita’s own class background complicates the picture. She was rich in Cuba, with servants who taught her to dance. Jack hates this fact because it disrupts his Marxist narrative. Her privilege in her home country doesn’t translate in the U.S., where she is exoticized and stripped of professional identity. The novel shows that class is not static: Anita moves from elite Cuban daughter to dependent wife to erased artist, her value determined by whom she is married to.

2. Raquel’s Navigation of the Ivy League Art World

Raquel’s story mirrors Anita’s with a generational shift. At Brown University, Raquel constantly negotiates her working‑class Puerto Rican identity among peers who inherit their access. Professor John Temple mentors her but also weaponizes her story—remembering that her mother worked in the Met cafeteria—as a reminder that she is an exception. He tells her the art world runs on an “apprenticeship system” and that it matters “for a Hispanic woman like you to have the endorsement of a person like me” (chapter 3). The offer is conditional: Raquel must prove she belongs by enduring extra labor, like taking a painting class to earn a B, a trial her wealthy peers never face.

The dinner with the “Art History Girls” (chapter 6) exposes raw class animus. Classmates Claire and Margot accuse Raquel of stealing a RISD fellowship through affirmative action and “manipulating” Temple. They physically block her from leaving, demanding she admit she is a talentless nobody. Raquel feels the Ivy League has “washed the street away from her,” leaving her unable to fight back with the blunt force she might have used in Brooklyn. The scene shows privilege as a weapon: the girls can afford to be cruel because their families sit on boards and write checks.

Later, Raquel’s relationship with Nick Fitzsimmons forces her into class performance. For Campus Dance, Nick gives her a Vivienne Tam dress and control‑top pantyhose, explicitly chosen to help her “fit in” with his mother. Raquel compares it to her sister Betsaida’s silver lamé dress—the one that would be “too loud, too flashy” for the Fitzsimmons dinner table (chapter 10). The dress is a symbol of the self‑editing privilege demands: Raquel must suppress her authentic aesthetic to be palatable to wealth.

3. The Ghost’s Reclamation and Raquel’s Second Chance

The two timelines converge when Raquel researches Anita for her honors thesis. Raquel wins the Department Chair’s Prize and a coauthored Art in America piece, but she declines immediate grad school for a writing job—a choice that prioritizes independence over the academic credentialing that privilege makes easier (chapter 33). At the reception, people discuss Anita’s art, not just her death, marking a shift in how Anita is seen.

Anita’s ghost, in chapter 34, experiences a parallel turning point. She haunts a party at Tilly’s loft, intending to push Jack down a staircase, but stops: “her art has been restored by Raquel, lessening her anger.” The ghost transitions from vengeance to protection, bringing Raquel a mouse as thanks. This supernatural intervention symbolically reverses the power imbalance: a dead, erased woman of color uses her remaining agency to aid a living one.

The ceiba tree—a tree rooted in Caribbean spiritual traditions—serves as Anita’s portal. It connects the natural world of her Cuban heritage to the marble hallways of elite Manhattan. The tree represents an alternative form of power outside the white‑dominated gallery system. Similarly, the “Graceland” song becomes a haunting tool: Anita changes the music at Tilly’s party, causing panic and reclaiming control over the space where she once performed for white approval.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel does not present class and privilege as a simple binary of oppressed vs. oppressor. Anita had servants in Cuba and enjoyed material comfort before Jack; she acknowledges her own privilege in that context. Raquel, while working‑class, has a mother who secured her a job at the Met and a sister who gives advice on how to survive rich‑people dinners. Both women also possess agency: Anita chooses to dance rather than confront Jack directly; Raquel chooses to keep the early Anita photograph as a daily reminder of worth rather than sell it or give it back. Privilege shapes the constraints, but within those constraints, the characters make meaningful decisions.

The novel also critiques the idea that talent alone can overcome class barriers. Anita’s art was innovative and politically urgent, yet it was dismissed until a young scholar revived it. Raquel’s rigorous work earns her a fellowship, but her peers still accuse her of stealing it through affirmative action. The epigraph from Janson’s History of Art sets up the institutional exclusion that both women face: the canon is built by those with power to define “universality.” Class and privilege are the invisible architecture of that canon.

Symbol Connections

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Jack Martin use Anita’s class and ethnic background to enhance his own image?
Jack tells stories about Anita arriving on Pedro Pan and her father being jailed by Castro, portraying her as a “Communist Cuban girlfriend.” He turns her family trauma into cocktail conversation to make himself appear edgy and politically engaged. Anita resists by correcting the record, but Jack continues to frame her story for his benefit (chapter 4).

2. What does Tilly Barber mean when she tells Anita to “choose”?
Tilly advises Anita to accept the material benefits of being Jack’s partner—facialists, personal shoppers, travel—rather than insisting on being taken seriously as an artist. She implies Anita cannot have both a career and Jack’s lifestyle, reinforcing the class‑based notion that a woman of color should be grateful for proximity to power.

3. In the confrontation with the Art History Girls, how does class privilege operate as a weapon?
Claire and Margot accuse Raquel of stealing a fellowship through affirmative action and of “manipulating” Professor Temple. They physically block her exit, demanding she admit she is a talentless nobody. Their privilege—family connections, inherited cultural capital—lets them attack without consequence, while Raquel feels unable to fight back because her Brooklyn toughness has been “washed away” by Brown.

4. Why does Raquel accept the Vivienne Tam dress from Nick, and what does it reveal about class performance?
Raquel accepts the dress because she senses it will help her “fit in” at dinner with Nick’s wealthy parents. The dress comes with control‑top pantyhose, literally shaping her body to conform. It reveals that class navigation requires self‑editing: Raquel must suppress her own aesthetic preferences to be acceptable in elite spaces.

5. How does Anita’s ghost transition from vengeful to protective, and what does this suggest about the relationship between class, legacy, and agency?
Anita’s ghost originally wants to push Jack down a staircase, but she stops because Raquel’s research has restored her art. With her legacy revived, Anita shifts from vengeance to protection, using her powers to help Raquel (e.g., bringing a mouse as thanks). This suggests that being seen and valued—having one’s work taken seriously—restores agency even after death, countering the erasure that class privilege typically enforces.