Identity and Belonging in Anita de Monte Laughs Last

Thematic Claim

Xóchitl González’s novel argues that identity is both a cage and a canvas: characters must perform versions of themselves to survive institutions that dismiss them, yet they can reclaim authentic belonging through artistic creation and solidarity. Anita de Monte and Raquel Toro each confront a white‑dominated art world that demands they shrink or exoticize themselves. Their struggles with assimilation, cultural displacement, and the performance of identity reveal how belonging is never simply granted—it must be fought for, often through acts of creative rebellion.

Plot Threads That Build the Theme

1. Anita’s Defiant Dance (Fall 1985)

At Tilly Barber’s party, Anita learns she has secured a solo show in Rome. Her husband, Jack Martin, tries to diminish her news. Instead of shrinking, Anita decides “to strip him of his power” and transmutes her anger into exuberant salsa with Jomar. She commands the room, feeling “the attention of the room now pull toward me.” Yet she is acutely aware that the crowd sees her through multiple lenses: “Anita de Monte, immigrant opportunist … wife of the legendary Jack Martin.” Her performance is a survival tool, but it is also a genuine reclamation of joy. The silver sequins of her dress become a symbol of this double-edged visibility—she is seen, but only as a spectacle. That very night she dies falling from a window, and everyone remembers “how she had been laughing … how the silver sequins of her dress went flying.”

2. Anita’s Return to Cuba (1986–1987)

On a delegation trip to Cuba, Anita realizes “New York … made a liar out of me.” She has been producing work designed to win approval rather than tell her truth. Visiting artist Marco shows her his hidden queer nudes, made only for himself, and she feels the “fraud of my very self.” During a rainstorm she strips naked and covers herself with the red earth of Cuba, a ritual cleansing that symbolically reconnects her to her homeland: “I tasted the mineral and salt of it … and it tasted so good. This return to myself.” She then bribes officials with her ruby earrings—a gift from Jack—to extend her stay. For a year she makes ephemeral cave sculptures and beach figures that wash away. This is her most authentic belonging: creation without audience, art made for her own soul.

3. Raquel’s Struggle with the Art History Girls (Spring 1998)

Raquel Toro, a Puerto Rican art history student at Brown, wins a curatorial fellowship at the RISD Museum. Her white peers, especially Claire and Margot, resent her success. In a vicious confrontation, they accuse her of “riding affirmative action,” stealing “our spot,” and being a “hot Latin girl who throws herself at her adviser.” Raquel feels physically ill: “Brown had washed the street away from her. Left her clawless in a different kind of wild.” The scene dramatizes how institutions force outsiders to perform gratitude and humility while simultaneously punishing them for succeeding. Raquel’s only ally in that room is Mavette, another woman of colour, but even Mavette’s support is timid.

4. Raquel Discovers Anita’s Hidden Work (Summer 1998)

While researching her thesis, Raquel pores over photographs of Jack Martin’s Reina Sofía installation—thousands of silver ball bearings. She notices a shape in the clear space: the outline of a woman. This is Anita’s ghostly signature, a silueta she created by moving the ball bearings each night when Jack wasn’t looking. Raquel feels an electric connection: “I was struggling to find an angle … and then I noticed this image.” The discovery gives Raquel intellectual purpose and emotional kinship. Anita’s hidden art becomes proof that belonging can be forged through invisible labour and cross‑generational recognition. Later, when Raquel delivers her honors thesis on both artists, she wins the Department Chair’s Prize and lands a job at Art in America. She keeps a photograph of Anita’s early work as a daily reminder of her own worth.

Character and Symbol Connections

The ceiba tree appears in chapters where Anita’s ghost listens to living names and feelings; it is her connection to the world she once inhabited. The bat (mentioned in the symbols list but not in the provided evidence) is not developed in the excerpts given. The “Graceland” song appears when Anita haunts a party in spring 2000, changing the music to trigger panic in Jack—a final assertion of her lingering presence.

Complexity and Contradiction

Both women must perform identity to gain entry, but performance can also be a prison. Anita’s dazzling dance is authentic joy yet also a distraction from her husband’s infidelity; her Cuban earth ritual is genuine reclamation, yet she can only afford it by bribing officials with jewels that symbolize her entrapment. Raquel’s quiet diligence is both her strength and her vulnerability—she is accused of “manipulating the faculty” precisely because she works harder than her peers. The novel refuses a simple resolution: belonging is never fully achieved. Anita dies before she can see her solo show; Raquel secures a job but carries the memory of Margot’s taunts. What endures is the art itself—Anita’s siluetas, Raquel’s thesis—which creates a community of recognition that outlasts any single institution.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the epigraph from Janson’s preface set up the theme of belonging?
The epigraph defends excluding non‑Western artists for the sake of “universality.” This frames the entire novel as a critique of canon‑formation: who gets to belong to art history is determined by gatekeepers who mistake their own perspective for universal truth.

2. Why does Anita stay in Cuba for a year, and what does she gain?
She stays to reconnect with her family, her orishas, and her artistic self. By making ephemeral works that will wash away, she creates art for herself alone, free from the approval of white dealers, critics, or her husband. This is her most authentic belonging.

3. What role does Mavette play in Raquel’s story?
Mavette is a sympathetic but flawed ally. She is also non‑white and shares Raquel’s frustrations, yet she refuses to take a strong stand when the Art History Girls attack Raquel. Their friendship illustrates the loneliness of being “the only one” and the difficulty of coalition across class and national origin.

4. How do material objects (earrings, Benetint, silver sequins) symbolize identity?
Each object marks a transaction between authenticity and performance. Anita’s ruby earrings are a gift from Jack that she trades for freedom; Raquel’s Benetint is a cosmetic marker of whiteness she discards; Anita’s silver sequins are glamour that also draws the fatal gaze of the party. Identity is always materially negotiated.

5. What does Raquel’s final decision—to take the entry‑level job rather than grad school—say about belonging?
By choosing a writing job at Art in America, Raquel enters the art world on her own terms, not through Temple’s apprenticeship model. She keeps Anita’s photograph “as a daily reminder of her own worth and Anita’s enduring energy.” Belonging, the novel suggests, comes from creating one’s own place—and honoring those who came before.