Hong Kingston Elementary School

I spent most of my life growing up in Stockton. Yes, I've heard every joke in the book and made most of them myself: no, I'm not in a gang. Yes, there is gunfire at night sometimes. Once in middle school there was a shooting on the street right outside and the people at the dance inside turned up the music and kept dancing. There are some nice parts, but it's not the greatest city in the world (in fact, it was once the #1 worst place to live). But we do have an elementary school named after Maxine Hong Kingston.

As a youngster, I didn't know who "Hong Kingston" was. The other schools around the city are named things like Hazelton, Chavez, Hoover, King, etc., I assumed that whoever they were must be some king of political person I just hadn't heard of in class yet.

Maxine Hong Kingston was born in Stockton. She's what those of us who came from Stockton would refer to as "someone who escaped" and the city has rewarded her for this with a school, seemingly in the same way we honored Janet Leigh with a plaque in front of the movie theater because she went to school at the University of the Pacific.

But I didn't know any of this. I knew who Janet Leigh was, but couldn't even tell you the gender of the person they named that elementary school after. Her name is on a list next to Pullman, Adams, Kennedy, and nothing. Is it because she's a woman? Because the education system in Stockton isn't the greatest? Because she's a writer and not a president? It begs the question of who we see as important and why we think they are important. We put her name on something because she came from the city, but we don't assign her books. Is location more important than the person? It makes me wonder if we read Tripmaster Monkey because it's an important piece of literature, or because it happens to be set in San Francisco.

Stockton is mentioned a few more times in Tripmaster Monkey than it is in most other "San Francisco novels", probably because anyone who isn't from there likes to pretend it doesn't exist. In the first chapter of the book, Wittman says something about people thinking he's a "dentist from Stockton" (UOP has quite a good dental school). I find it interesting that San Francisco is the type of place you write about, Stockton is the kind of place you mention in passing.

Stockton is not San Francisco by any stretch of the imagination. There's no beautiful coastal views, International Orange bridges, or Beat poets. It's a place you leave to make art somewhere else. But that doesn't make the people who are from there any less than people from San Francisco. You don't suddenly start your life or become a Person when you finally get to San Francisco. Artists come from anywhere and anywhere can inspire art. SF is an important place, but it's only important because people make it that way.